Tag: Guns Guns Guns

…kids are in danger when they go to school and their peers offer them a Juul hit in the bathroom, but they’re also in danger when their peers show up with semiautomatic rifles and shoot them. Yet while e-cigarettes constitute something people choose to put in their own body—that is, not an express violation of other citizens’ rights—they’re up for a ban. Insanely powerful weapons of war, which are regularly used to infringe on the rights of other citizens, must be freely available to all in perpetuity.

Mango Juuls don’t kill people, people smoking Mango Juuls kill people. Which is why we’re banning Mango Juuls.

Charlie Pierce writing for Esquire. Nothing else to say but: Yep.

We went for a drive in the desert and a little woo-poo. We really tied one on. We started shooting up a little town – Indio, I think it was; I don’t know where the hell we were – with a couple of .38s Frank [Sinatra] kept in the vanity compartment. We were both cock-eyed. We shot out streetlights, store windows. God knows how we got away with it. I guess Frank knew somebody! Somebody with a badge. He usually did.

Ava Gardner, describing a few of her days with Frank Sinatra circa 1949.

…in the middle of one of the most dangerous regions in the world, even with clear Rules of Engagement, every time I went on gate duty, there was a piece of tape over my ammo clip on my M-16 and M1911 .45. Why? Because the most heavily armed military in the world did not want accidental shootings. If a situation arose, I would have to eject my ammo clip, remove the tape, and reinsert and work the action before I could fire.

This was in a combat zone. Yet I have spent the last two fucking days dealing with armchair commandos telling me they need unlimited firepower to be safe in… Connecticut.

If there are bigger pussies in the world than gun nuts, I don’t know who the fuck they are.

John Cole, speaking the truth over on Balloon Juice.
Source: balloon-juice.com

Today’s GOP: Futile and Bizarre

This urge among conservatives to refight the 2008 election is as futile as it is bizarre, premised as it is on the existence of a secret video or document from Obama’s “hidden” past that will expose the moderate Democrat as the hardcore left-wing radical they already believe him to be. But as [FOXnews contributor Brian] Kilmeade pointed out, Obama’s actual policy record – the only thing that actually matters – provides no proof of that alleged radicalism. Thus conservatives are put in the paradoxical situation of relying more and more heavily on “secret” videos and documents from Obama’s past that become less relevant with each passing day of the Obama presidency.

But, but, but: Obama was never vetted. That’s the most important thing.

It’s as though the GOP collectively ignored just how fierce that Democratic primary in the run-up to the 2008 elections was. And, frankly, one of the wages of their epic epistemic closure is just that: inattention to just what it is The Democrat gets up to day to day.
So let’s recap: Anything and everything worth using against candidate Obama was used against candidate Obama back in 2008. Now, they’re always certain they’ve got the super-secret powder-keg that McCain either didn’t know about or wouldn’t use; mostly these arrive in the form of hyping years-old video that, in this case as in almost every case, is and was easily available on YouTube. Predictably, the dread Librul Media is somehow convinced to hyperventilate about each of these and “report” on the countdown to the latest nothing-burger’s release. Drudge is, after all, still the Village’s assignment editor.

But, as Media Matters sagely points out: Even if GOP operatives had found the super-duper evidence that in some past speech Obama admitted that he hates the whites, wants to take their guns, and plans to turn ‘Merica into a socialist dreamworld that would make Castro blush, how could that possibly be more important and/or relevant than four years of governing that shows trends towards absolutely none of these things. Quite the opposite, actually. Even in the most fevered of swamps, that’s one hell of a Bill Ayers plan; get Obama elected, govern center-right for four years (to better court the full fury of his original and most passionate base, apparently). Then, upon achieving some narrowly figured reelection, blow the doors off and reveal the super-secret socialist masterpiece of a plan that will pass a still uniformly intransigent Congress, uh, some way or other. Genius!

Sharia law, here we come. It’s what Reverend Wright has been preaching all along, I tells ya.

Today’s GOP: Futile and Bizarre

There Is No Third Thing

Ezra Klein, on the tepid reaction to the President’s energy policy:

This brings up one of the toughest questions in punditry: What is the right thing for the president to do on an issue that’s 1) morally urgent and 2) absolutely dead on arrival in Congress?

He forgets one thing:

3) and which his political opposition will be allowed to argue both sides of?

Libya is only the latest example, but there are many, many others. As soon as the President is for it, the GOP is categorically and irrevocably against it regardless of where they stood in the millisecond before Obama made a decision. This is how Obama went from “dangerously disengaged” or “timid” on Libya and missing his big chance to remake the region to dangerously over-aggressive and missing his big chance for peace in our time in the course of approximately 36 hours.

This is precisely why Obama needs to start inveighing against the perils of windpower, the tyranny of train-based transportation, and making demands that every US citizen above the age of 14 be required to carry at least one gun with its safety off at all times.
I’m only half-joking here. Any rational policy decision will have to be couched in, at best, seeming disinterest on the part of Obama. And this is why many issues are currently hung with the “why isn’t Obama saying anything about…” rubric. Once he takes up a position, even if it is the GOP position, you’re going to face instant and intransigent opposition to whatever Obama says. Even if they were the ones promoting it yesterday. On really sticky issues like Libya, you’ll have the Serious Person dream situation: categorical GOP opposition coupled with strong attacks “from the President’s left.” And just how it’s possible to be “to the left” of a radical socialist community organizer is left as an exercise for the student, as these are questions that the MSM simply will not ask. Shrill.
Progressives angry that their pet issue isn’t receiving enough facetime from Obama should frankly count their lucky stars. Once he weighs in, your issue is over. It is only in the face of Presidential disinterest that even incremental policy progress can actually be made in this environment.

Until such time as the GOP gets significant push-back on this form of rampant and entirely political flip-floppery, it will remain the only game in town. Since such push-back would require research and preparation on the part of the MSM, I wouldn’t hold my breath. That this cycle happens to be a game that is measurably and inexorably killing the country is yet another of those facts that do not matter.

As if on Cue

Rest assured, gun violence only ever provides reasons to put more guns into circulation and never, ever serves as an argument for stricter regulations or requirements for those who wish to own or carry a gun:

Our model legislation is called the Giffords-Zimmerman Act,“ said Heller. (Giffords staffer Gabriel Zimmerman, 30, was killed on Saturday.) "It would require the Arizona Department of Public Safety to provide firearms training, using firearms confiscated by the state, to members of Congress and people who work for them. Facilities would be made available to them in a way that wouldn’t interfere with the training of police and other safety employees.”

Heller speculated that a response like this could prevent future attacks on members of Congress. “I don’t think having a firearm on her would do Congresswoman Giffords any good,” said Heller. “However, if it was known that members of her staff were well armed, that very well could have dissuaded [the shooter].

Arizona is already one of the easiest states in which to purchase and concealed-carry a gun, no licensing required. That easy availability did nothing whatsoever on Saturday, unless you count getting a gun into the hands of a 22 year old with apparent mental illness. The solution, as always: just make guns more available. That’ll solve it.

Now go die in those equally opportune streets like a well-armed man. Preferably by being shot; just don’t expect healthcare if you haven’t pre-paid or are any shade of brown. That is all.

On Random Thoughts 306 and 307

politicalprof:

#306: Does anyone believe that the tragedy in Arizona would have been less dangerous and less tragic if 20 people had pulled out their guns and started firing at the shooter?

#307: Did anyone else notice that in Arizona, one of the most gun-friendly states in the United States, that the shooter was subdued by people who hit him and jumped on him? Not by armed vigilantes who wielded their guns?

On this topic I’d only add: does anyone think that Arizona’s gun laws, which basically amount to “anyone over 21 can buy, concealed-carry, and be armed at any time and in any place” make that state a safer place to reside?

Every time an incident involving a lone shooter occurs in a state with stiff gun laws, we’re treated to moans about “if only they’d let more people carry guns there, they’d have taken care of it before it ever started”; when it transpires in a gun crazed, heavily armed state like AZ: sounds of silence.

Journalists: How many folks on the ground in the immediate vicinity had guns on them? In the store? In the parking lot? Yet it was a well timed open field tackle that reportedly incapacitated the gunman.