Nothing brings the US’s struggles with adopting even the most rudimentary gun safety measures into perspective better than taking a gander at other countries that have already enacted sensible gun control. Here’s a very revealing three-part series from The Daily Show where John Oliver heads goes Down Under for one heck of a study in contrasts, both societal and political:
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| Rep. Nate Bell (R-AK) |
I don’t have anything noteworthy to add regarding the almost Kafkaesque week the US is going through (not to mention that I’ve been unusually busy with a quasi-secret project that I’ll be unveiling soon). At this point, the most that any rational and decent people can do if unable to offer any direct assistance to those affected in Massachusetts, Texas, Illinois and wherever else calamity has struck in the last few days is to send their hearts and thoughts out to the victims and their close ones.
Or, in the case of Rep. Nate Bell (R-AK), mock them:
I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine? #2A
— Nate Bell (@NateBell4AR) April 19, 2013
Because the only thing to help in a massive police manhunt over an act of violence is a terrified and outraged mob taking to the streets with even more fucking guns.
Better yet, Bell later non-apologized for the timing of his statement, rather than having said such a ludicrously inappropriate thing at all. Because taunting the victims of terrorism should always be kept until after all their blood and tears have ceased to flow. Like, give it a week or something.
(via ThinkProgress)
Yet again, nothing tears through wingnuts’ delusions like a little bit of satire. Here’s Tom the Dancing Bug’s take on all the raging and whining from gun nuts who can’t possibly see reasonable gun control as anything else than an insidious government plot to ban all guns (presumably to leave the sheeple defenseless against a UN invasion to bring about a New World Order, or something):
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| Transcript: (click the [+/-] to open/close →) | [−] |
BLOND-HAIRED MAN: I’ve heard tell that private citizens were once allowed to own them.
BLOND-HAIRED MAN: How did we Americans lose that precious right of ownership?
BLACK-HAIRED MAN: I know not. Let us ask the very old one. Perhaps he remembers.
BLACK-HAIRED MAN: Very old one, how did it happen? How did the government…
VERY OLD MAN: Shhh! There are government ears everywhere!
VERY OLD MAN: Long ago, we were happy and free. Responsible owners made sure they were stored and used properly.
VERY OLD MAN: Then the government said we’d have to register each and every one of them.
VERY OLD MAN: It seemed reasonable. They are dangerous things. But I know what the government really wanted.
I and others fought it with all our strength. But the feds needed this foothold and would not be denied.
VERY OLD MAN: We lost. And the government had taken the first step on its inexorable path.
VERY OLD MAN: Soon after the registration requirement, sure enough, suddenly you needed a license to use one.
VERY OLD MAN: Next you were prohibited from owning one without holding insurance! Then came the final step that brought us to today…
VERY OLD MAN: The illegalization of car ownership!
BLOND-HAIRED MAN: The fools! Reasonable regulation of dangerous instruments always leads to tyranny!
(via Political Irony)
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| Ted Nugent |
Dammit, wingnuts always break their promises. Here’s rabid gun nut and all-around crazypants Ted Nugent addressing the NRA exactly one year ago this Sunday:
"If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year. Why are you laughing? Do you think that's funny? That's not funny at all. I'm serious as a heart attack."
*glances at calendar*
To be fair, the Nuge should probably be used to people laughing whenever he’s around.
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There’s something especially hideous about sentencing someone to complete surgical paralysis for a crime they committed as a juvenile a decade ago. (From a US-supported “allied” country, no less.)
(via @tomgara; RT: @ggreenwald)
Cracked has a very solid and informative piece explaining how the causes and nature of gun violence are never as simple as we make them out to be.
I am shocked, just as I assume you will be, to learn that the much-ballyhooed “college student suspended for refusing to stomp on Jesus!” story isn’t actually what the wingnuts claim it is.
And finally, while I find it odd that Google chose to celebrate Cesar Chavez over Easter, it’s hilarious how utterly incensed the Christianist-Right is getting over it. Gawd forbid a secular company not celebrate their cherished religious holiday!
If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.
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| Pres. Barack Obama |
The blogging vibe has forsaken me today, so here’s a quick link dump for y’all.
President Obama [pictured] enacts whistleblower protection law – then adds signing statement that he’ll ignore any protections that prevent him from targeting whistleblowers. You can’t make this shit up.
Meanwhile, the ugly and pseudo-historical Creationist branch of racism contaminates Texas schools.
Oh, look, it’s a new report about the Catholic Church covering up clerical child abuse for Bill Donohue to splutter in denial about.
(via Friendly Atheist)
Today’s argument against banning assault rifles*: There aren’t that many people being slaughtered by them, and besides, we already tried it once and it really didn’t work, so fuck it, amirite?
(via The Agitator)
Proof that there is an Intelligent Designer, and that it’s totally wasted.
(via @radleybalko)
And finally, random adorable photo time:
(via @EmergencyPuppy)
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If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.
* Because the linguistic pedant in me refuses to use the term “assault weapons”.
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| Pres. Barack Obama |
Sorry for the repeated link dumps, only there’s this awesome story I just … must … finish …
President Obama [pictured] finally proposes some basic, obvious, commonsensical gun control regulations.
(via Pharyngula)
… Which, of course, means he’s out to disarm Americans to make it easier for the government to kill them all! (Seriously, Vox, take a toke.)
California lawmakers present bill to fix ridiculous legal loophole used to exculpate rapists posing as someone’s partner.
Radley Balko has a great write-up about the inordinate and dangerous amount of power and immunity granted to U.S. prosecutors.
And finally, I don’t agree with everything in it, but Robert Brockway at Cracked has an interesting piece about the U.S.’s culture of glorified violence and the role of videogames as a symptom.
If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.
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| Stephen Colbert |
I think we’ve officially reached the point where the NRA is doing to gun rights what PETA does to animal rights.
New York police get even creepier, now fighting war on prescription painkillers by hiding GPS trackers in fake pill bottles for unsuspecting pain patients druggies.
(via Joe. My. God.)
California judge blocks overbroad law that would destroy sex offenders’ free speech rights to anonymity online.
Good gawd are MRAs/PUAs pathetic. How grimly amusing that these silly little boys presume to call themselves “men”.
(via @jennifurret)
Oh, and Wonkette also has some fun with the sex-obsessed little toad.
And finally, following Jon Stewart’s lead, it’s Stephen Colbert’s [pictured] turn to shine on gun control [no time for a transcript, sorry]:
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| Non-U.S. readers: Click here to learn how to enable Comedy Central videos (Firefox only) |
If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.
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| Julie Burchill |
Carnival of insanity: Wyoming Republicans push blatantly illegal bill to hypothetically imprison federal agents who try to enforce gun control laws.
(via Joe. My. God.)
Oldie but goody: Economist thoroughly debunks several myths about Canada’s socialized healthcare system. (No, doctors and Canadians don’t think the U.S. system is better.)
Professional asshat Julie Burchill [pictured] flames out spectacularly against “vociferous transexual lobby” – aka “bunch of dicks in chicks' clothing” – for criticizing her friend’s transphobic rhetoric. What is it with this pervasive hatred of MtF folk amongst some feminist ranks?
(via @ggreenwald; original Observer article since retracted)
Another debunking of the brazen lie about there supposedly being no global warming for 16 years.
Meanwhile, Vox Day still loves flogging the necrotic equine of confirmation bias and blatant bullshit.
But then, what else to expect from a guy who actually thinks the Canadian government is “preemptively ban[ning] sexbots” – because of feminists’ “pursuit for gender equality”?
Canadian parents are apparently quite fond of quackery.
And finally, church signs are so useful for revealing exactly which attitudes are encouraged:
(via Joe. My. God.)
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If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.
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| NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg |
The War on (certain people who use certain kinds of) Drugs gets even worse, thanks to NYC Mayor Bloomberg’s [pictured] nanny-statist bullshit. Only politicians have ego to think they can dictate medical policy better than actual doctors.
The fact that he actually said something like, “[S]upposing it is really true so you didn’t get enough painkillers and you did have to suffer a little bit. The other side of the coin is people are dying and there’s nothing perfect,” really tells you all you need to know about the man.
(via @radleybalko)
At least some Republicans still haven’t learned to STFU about rape.
(via @BuzzFeedAndrew)
Salon’s Alex Seitz-Wald effectively destroys the Right’s myth that gun-toting commoners somehow prevent militarized takeovers.
(via RT: @mmfa)
And finally, here’s today’s edition of “I want a dog, dammit”:
(via @MelanieKV; RT: @ggreenwald)
If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.
Just last month, Jon Stewart of The Daily Show tore into the reactionary airheads at Fox News for steadfastly refusing to ever talk about the U.S.’s absurd gun culture and necessary, commonsensical measures for reducing gun violence. Now, he’s back for more and lays down what may be the authoritative hammering of the Right-wing’s continued failure to accept that their blind infatuation with firearms may be stinting their ability to recognize that which is overwhelmingly obvious to everyone else (parts one and two):
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| Non-U.S. readers: Click here to learn how to enable Comedy Central videos (Firefox only) |
| Transcript: (click the [+/-] to open/close →) | [−] |
JON STEWART: In the wake of some events that have happened – Newtown, Aurora, Portland, Tucson – it’s a 22-minute show, so I’m not gonna list everything. But finally, everyone from the NRA to the Marin County Kumbaya Patrol is ready to talk about gun violence. Though, to be fair to Kumbaya Patrol, they’ve been ready for quite some time, now.
So let’s have that conversation, people. Nothing’s off the table, no bad ideas, a safe space. Let’s start the discussion on gun violence. Let’s start with the discussion of gun control.
NRA EXECUTIVE VP WAYNE LAPIERRE [12/23/12]: Gun control […] it’s not gonna make any kids safer. We gotta get to the real problem, the real causes.
STEWART: Oh, I’m sorry. I just assumed that beginning the conversation on gun control meant starting with … guns. But you, uh … you wanna talk about the non-gun causes of … gun violence. Well, you know what? It’s a conversation. No bad ideas. Maybe there are other factors we should look at. Let’s see – what other non-gun causes are we talking about, here?
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN [01/06/13]: With have so much violence surrounding us that we think is okay.
LAPIERRE [12/21/12]: Violent videogames with names like Bulletstorm […] Grand Theft Auto […] Mortal Kombat […] Splatterhouse […] Blood-soaked films out there. […] American Psycho […] Natural Born Killers[.]
STEWART: Natural Born Killers and American Psycho? Holy …! Has it been that long since we’ve had a conversation about gun control? Been that long since we deflected the gun control argument with the “corrupt Hollywood media culture” argument?
But actually, you know what? That French guy has a point. It may be an indirect influence, but there is no question that we glorify violence in our culture and it’s something we have to consider. If a massacre occurs in a schoolhouse and TV network heads have to scramble to see if that storyline’s gonna bump up against the network’s prime-time episodic schedule, that’s a [fucking] problem. “Oh, is this terrible massacre gonna affect our new show, Massacre, Fridays at 8? The hot new lead-in to Corpse Raper Intent: SVU? Starring …” I dunno who that is. Nick Carter and young Gallagher.
Look, man. As for violent videogames, yeah, I guess they’re out there, but then again, the Dutch spend more than twice as much on videogames as we do and have less than a tenth of the gun violence. Although, to be fair, most of their games are of the first-person dike-plugger genre.
So, yeah. Maybe we need to talk about whether our culture is adding to the soup. That’s gotta be on the table. But if we’re gonna talk about that, let’s look at all of our culture. The Right likes to talk about Hollywood’s influence on that, but are there other media influences that must also be examined?
FOX ANCHOR #1 [02/26/03]: Are there terror cells in your neighborhood?
FOX ANCHOR #2 [11/06/12]: The New Black Panther Party’s outside a polling place.
DICK MORRIS [08/18/10]: These Sharia mosques have become the command centers for terrorists.
SEAN HANNITY [04/07/10]: The end of Capitalism in America.
RUSH LIMBAUGH [11/08/12]: We’re four years into tyranny winning!
HANNITY [09/24/12]: This is indoctrination of kids.
GLENN BECK [11/07/12]: If you live in the East, may I recommend: Get the hell out of the East.
BILL O’REILLY [08/04/08]: It’s gonna be Armageddon.
BECK [11/07/12]: Your religion is gonna come under attack.
HANNITY GUEST [10/01/12]: If Obama’s reelected, this country’s over!
Stewart clutches toy AR-15 assault rifle in fear.
STEWART: What? I’m not sure what happened; I’m sorry, I blacked out in the middle of that and woke up with an AK in my, I dunno! Or whatever this is. I’m sure I’ll get letters about what this really is … which is plastic, is what it really is.
Stewart puts the gun away.
STEWART: But it puts us back to the more direct issue of guns.
FOX GUEST [06/29/10]: Gun control doesn’t work.
STEWART: … Or not. I keep forgetting. What else?
LAPIERRE: We have a mental health system in this country that is completely and totally collapsed.
STEWART: Okay, okay – again, 100% correct. Thank you, Wayne LaPierre, for bringing this up. We closed the mental institutions in many respects, and now, our mentally ill live on the streets or are in prison, and it is untenable. It is up to us to help them find compassionate, proactive care. This is what we have to address in our mental health system. I’m assuming that’s what you mean.
LAPIERRE: We have no national database of these lunatics.
STEWART: Or that. Or that. I was gonna say compassionate, total care of mental illness, or … “lunatic database”. Although, isn’t that what the Internet is? Isn’t that a national lunatic database? What would be the criterion for the lunatic database? What are the kinds of things you would say to get on it?
LAPIERRE [07/05/12]: Americans don’t wanna be added to that pile of dead people that have been left defenseless by the U.N. policies.
STEWART: [writing on paper] “LaPierre” with two ‘r’s or one?
Look – I don’t wanna kill the conversation before it starts. Yes, mental healthcare absolutely has to be on the table, has to be improved. But someone’s always gonna slip through the cracks, and our mental health problem leads to other problems: crime, guns, violence …
MIKE HUCKABEE [07/21/12]: Ultimately, we don’t have a crime problem, or a gun problem, or even a violence problem. What we have is a sin problem.
STEWART: [beat] Is this about me masturbating? Is that what this is about? Look, I didn’t know … that that is considered a national issue.
Look. We can dance around the issue all we want. We can blame movies, or videogames, or the mentally ill, or God – it’s a complex problem and all solutions have to be on the table, but it is time we talk about guns.
ERIC BOLLING [12/17/12]: I don’t wanna do this. I don’t wanna do this gun control discussion right now. There’s a day, a place and a time for all that […]
STEWART: It’s today. Right now. It is absolutely time to talk about gun control, and nothing is – [puts finger to ear] Wait, I’m sorry. I just heard we need to take a commercial break. Guess we’ll talk about guns when we come back. We’ll be right back.
STEWART: We’ve learned in our conversation about this country’s staggering number of gun-related deaths that it’s based on a surprising amount of non-gun factors: God, media, and crazy people.
GRAPHIC: God, cable news channels, and man in straightjacket
STEWART: Wow. That’s a pretty busy graphic. Can we streamline that, and yet also represent all three constituencies?
CLIP: Mike Huckabee talking on Fox News.
STEWART: There you go. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that this conversation is taking place between parties of good faith, and that all of us, on any side of the debate, are anti-massacre. If some commonsense firearms regulations might cut the number of these killings, why not try?
SHERIFF JOE ARPAIO [01/07/13]: We have many, many laws pertaining to guns already. We oughta enforce those laws.
MAN [01/07/13]: We already have laws banning murder, but we still have murders.
JESSE VENTURA [09/17/12]: Drunk driving. Do we go to the Ford Motor Company and tell them “stop making these automobiles because people get drunk and kill people in cars”?
STEWART: No, but we do enact stricter blood-alcohol limits, raise the drinking age, ramp up enforcement and penalties insurance, charge bartenders who serve drunks, and launch huge public awareness campaigns to stigmatize the dangerous behavior in question, and we do all those things because it might just help bring drunk driving down, I don’t know, by 2/3 in a few decades.
GRAPHIC: Drunk driving rates: 7.5% in 1973, 5.4% in 1986, 4.3% in 1996, 2.2% in 2007
STEWART: Like magazine sizes. Smaller magazines for guns make these crazy people have to reload more.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC) [12/23/12]: Changing a magazine, I can do that pretty quick.
STEWART: Yeah, but you’re Fast-Fingers Graham! The foremost gun enthusiast-slash-speed origami champion in the world! He made that in three seconds. How he uses his heavily callused gun hands to make such delicate paper art … why, it’s a mystery.
All right, magazine restrictions won’t help. How ’bout we keep all the guns except weapons designed purely to efficiently shred enemy soldiers?
NRA PRES. DAVID A. KEENE [12/23/12]: We’ve had a so-called assault weapons ban for ten years. […] The Justice Department, others who study it, said it made no difference.
FOX GUEST #2 [12/24/12]: The original assault weapons ban was ill-conceived and didn’t work properly.
STEWART: Well, you know what they say: If at first you don’t succeed, [fuck] it.
Again! None of these will ever be perfect! We’re not looking for some magic … flying, solving projectile. We’re looking for a series of steps for different areas that, over time, can improve the situation. As opposed to what we have now, which is legislative riders snuck into appropriations bills that prevent the ATF from inspecting gun dealers’ inventories, and bills that make it harder to put disturbed individuals on “do not buy” lists, and laws exempting gun-makers from any legal accountability for their product.
I mean – people, God forbid McDonald’s doesn’t tell you how hot their hot, steaming coffee is! That happens, and you’re taking the money train to McPunitive Damage Town. But an epidemic of gun violence? “Oh, we can’t! Our hands our tied! We can’t do anything!” We are a nation of overreacters to everything. We have, step-by-step, child-proofed this entire country. Twenty years ago, a guy threw a rock over an overpass and it hit a car windshield, and now, every overpass in the country is like a Habitrail! It’s just got a giant [?]! Football stadiums have giant nets behind the goalposts so you don’t get hit by the ball you’re supposed to be watching!
We can’t do anything about this? How about we make assault weapons available, but only at shooting ranges? Make guns less sexy so they won’t be considered so cool by young people? The next Jason Bourne movie stars Woody Allen, how ’bout that? “I’m not really a gun person. It’s not so much the killing, but the loading and the cleaning; it’s just – it’s a lotta work.” Or even better: creative sound editing to take away the “cool gun” factor.
MONTAGE: Movie shootout scenes with gunfire replaced with random amusing sound effects.
STEWART: See? Those silly sound effects completely dulled my desire to get caught in a violent and bloody three-way Mexican standoff.
And if you don’t like any of those solutions, please, we’d love to hear yours! There are no bad ideas.
REP. LOUIE GOHMERT (R-TX) [01/04/13]: I refuse to play the game of assault weapon because that’s any weapon. It’s a hammer, it’s – article came out this week; the massive number that are killed with hammers […]
STEWART: Okay, uh … if you wanna regulate … hammers, we could try that. Would it be possible also to regulate bags of hammers, or anyone as dumb as that?
But aside from hammer control – which, by the way, was a great MC Hammer album – do you have any other ideas for reducing gun violence?
LAPIERRE [12/21/12]: The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
STEWART: So, the school principal with a gun is gonna stop a guy with an assault rifle and a bulletproof vest? You know, I don’t think Principal Belding is as badass as you think he might be.
Here’s the problem. Technology has democratized carnage. And it’s very weird to me that gun enthusiasts won’t even entertain – let me amend that: some gun enthusiasts won’t entertain the idea of commonsense law enforcement supporting small-bore, so to speak, moves to try and reign in this violence. What’s really going on, here?
REP. RICHARD HUDSON (R-NC) [01/06/13]: We have Constitutional freedom – the right to keep and bear arms in this country.
STEWART: Yeah, yeah, “for a well regulated militia”, not a personal arsenal free-for-all. There’s all sorts of stuff you can’t have already: tanks, F-16 fighter jets, surface-to-air anything. When that Constitution was written, people had muskets. So … okay, you can have all the muskets you want. You can even have assault muskets for all I care. Jazz it up with a bayonet. Go [fucking] nuts. But why is it that there is no other issue in this country, with as dire public safety consequences as this, that we are unable to make even the most basic steps towards putting together a complex plan of action to stop this epidemic’s spread? What is really going on, here?
STEVE DOOCY [01/07/13]: I think you, like a lot of people, Joshua, are worried that the federal government’s gonna come after our guns.
STEWART: Now we’re getting somewhere. So, this isn’t really about the Constitution, or efficacy of regulation, or intruder defense. It’s about how perilously close some people in this country feel they’re living to a tyrant’s rule.
MARINE CPL. JOSHUA BOSTON [01/07/13]: It’s something we’ve seen happen time and time again in history, with Stalin, happened in Cambodia, and then, of course, the Third Reich. No-one saw that coming until it was too late.
ALEX JONES [01/07/13]: Hitler took the guns! Stalin took the guns! Mao took the guns! Fidel Castro took the guns! Hugo Chavez took the guns! And I’m here to tell you: 1776 will commence again if you take our firearms!
STEWART: Holy [shit]! No-one’s taking away all the guns. But now, I get it. Now, I see what’s happening. So, this is what it is. Their paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future prevents us from addressing our actual dystopic present. We can’t even begin to address 30,000 gun deaths that are actually, in reality, happening in this country every year because a few of us must remain vigilant against the rise of Imaginary Hitler.
The only nits I have to pick are with Stewart’s uncritical usage of the vague and misleading “assault weapons” term (there are “assault rifles”, but virtually any item can be labeled an “assault weapon” by parties seeking to restrict their availability) and his repeated assertion that gun violence is an “epidemic” in the U.S., given that gun-related homicides and other violent crimes have been steadily decreasing for decades. It’s always important to remember that as horrible as they are, one of the reasons these mass shootings are so shocking is precisely because they’re outliers.
Nonetheless, the U.S. will never gain any foothold on the path to exorcising its gun-related demons until the Second-Amendment-fetishizing camp decides to start acting like reasonable adults and open the lines of communication.
Why is it that so many who likely agree that prohibiting people from making death threats or yelling “fire” in a crowded theater are reasonable limits to the First Amendment also believe that any restrictions on what firearms the masses should be allowed to tote are a violation of the Second Amendment? Ruben Bolling explores:
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| by Ruben Bolling |
| Transcript: (click the [+/-] to open/close →) | [−] |
‘The NRA of counter-earth's extremist view of the first amendment’ | Tom the Dancing Bug (by Ruben Bolling)
There circles the sun another Earth, a Counter-Earth, whose diametrically opposed orbit keeps it forever beyond our detection.
Let us explore this strange world that is not quite the opposite of our own… but somewhat dissimilar in certain ways!
CAPTION: On Counter-Earth, the National Rhetoric Association (NRA) pushes an extreme interpretation of the First Amendment.
NRA SPOKESMAN VERNES PETERS: Our Founding Fathers gave us "freedom of speech," and any limitation is an affront to America's values. And by the way… FIRE!
CAPTION: Yet the pro-gun lobby is utterly powerless.
PRO-GUN SPOKESMAN: But we have the "Right to Bear Arms"!
JUDGE: What part of "well regulated militia" don't you understand, you bed-wetter?
PRO-GUN SPOX: Hey, that's slanderous!
JUSTICE: Ha!!
PETERS: Free speech means free, no matter what harm could result. You can't stop me from saying that the launch codes for a U.S. nuclear attack are B39TJD882X…
AUDIENCE: Gasp! Stop!!
AUDIENCE: If there are no limits on speech, people will be killed!
PETERS: Words don't kill people! Various traumas to the body kill people!
PETERS: The solution to someone yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is not prohibiting that speech. It's hiring fact-checkers in every theater. FIRE!
FACT-CHECKER: Hmm… I'm giving that outburst three and a half "Pinocchios"!
Legal rights and protections are not universal guarantees, and nor should they be. There are reasonable exceptions to any rule, and anyone who opposes that is, by definition, unreasonable (and most likely some sort of fundamentalist zealot).
(via Political Irony)
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| James Dobson |
Most Transparent Administration In HistoryTM allowed to continue hiding every single detail about its drone war.
Dishonest like a Breitbart acolyte arguing against gun control.
Looks like the design & technology community also has its issues with subconscious bigotry … and knee-jerk twits who perpetuate it.
(via @pzmyers)
Research indicates crime rates may be directly influenced by … leaded gasoline? First I’ve heard of this; while certain hazards increase risks of congenital defects, can they really have such a clear effect on complex adult behaviors decades later?
And finally, this is even more tragic than what’s happened to the History Channel:
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If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.
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This post developed from an idle thought I had during a conversation with a friend, and as a result, is more of a meandering than anything else. But I thought it would be interesting to share here should it spark any interesting discussion. Quite simply: Is there still a rational and reasonable basis for the continued existence of the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment in this modern day and age? (Note: This post is about the Second Amendment specifically, not the right to bear arms in and of itself. More at the bottom of the post.)
I don’t pretend to be a legal or historical buff, so I’ll keep things simple. From what I do know, Amendment II’s raison d’être was generally bipartite:
1) Ensure national security through a well-armed militia to defend against invaders; and
2) Grant U.S. citizens the means to overthrow the federal government should it become tyrannical.
(I’m well aware that there’s more than enough detail and nuance with these points and others to sustain countless endless legal and historical debates, but for the purposes of this post, that was basically the basis for including the right to bear arms in the Bill of Rights.)
Both of these points were quite valid during the days when the Second Amendment was created and enacted. Tensions with then-imperialist Britain meant constant worry about being attacked, and one of the overarching themes throughout the Constitution and other writings from the Founding Fathers is a general concern for freedom from dominion one way or another (a natural reaction, considering how they’d recently warred for their independence). Allowing commoners to arm themselves and form militarized groups was an obvious and rational solution to the very real concerns of the time.
But that’s the thing: Times change. The fledgling and vulnerable United States during the ratification of the Bill of Rights bears little resemblance to its current form as a global superpower, and the centralized, well-equipped federal military that grew out of the Civil War renders both previous premises all but moot:
1) The risks of any U.S. territory (much less the mainland) being invaded by any external force beyond a rogue flock of seagulls is outright laughable in the age of rapid mobilization and nuclear arsenals (among many other factors); and
2) For essentially the same reason, nothing short of having every single American man, woman and child march into Washington, DC with rifles in hand would be sufficient to destabilize a government as broad and powerful as the United States’s, and given that even the revelations of the federal government’s extrajudicial surveillance, assassination and indefinite detainment programs couldn’t spur more than renewed pointless partisan chicanery, I have my doubts that the American population retains much interest in forcefully opposing their government’s possible tyranny.
In other words, for better or worse, the two key reasons why the Second Amendment was necessary in the first place simply don’t apply anymore with the might of the U.S. Military.
So then, what other evidentiary basis might there be for the lingering enshrinement of the U.S. citizenry’s right to bear arms in the U.S. Constitution? Or in other words, why shouldn’t it be repealed should the opportunity arise?
Note: My position on gun rights is that sensible control is best: Civilians should be allowed to purchase and own firearms so long as they submit to criminal and behavioral background checks to weed out as many undesirables as possible, followed by mandatory safety training and with obligatory checkups every few years or so. Assault rifles and other high-powered weapons one would expect to see on a military battlefield should be restricted, as I can’t see a good reason why any random schmuck would need to walk around toting an AR-15 for “self-defense”. As for limits of gun and ammo quantities, that’s another tangent I’m not interested in broaching at the moment.
If anything, repealing the Second Amendment might be worth it just to put an end to the fetishism it’s subjected to from the rabidly pro-gun lobby.
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Wait, there’s still time for the world to end yet!
The NDAA [pictured] gets even worse: Senate removes amendment protecting U.S. citizens from indefinite detention without a trial.
(via @BuzzFeedAndrew)
Meanwhile, it turns out that the Obama administration’s surveillance program is even worse than under Bush & co., to absolutely no-one-who’s-been-paying-attention’s surprise.
41-million-strong state of São Paulo, Brazil passes same-sex marriage.
(via Joe. My. God.)
Pro-gun lobby blames Newtown massacre on gun-free zones, media, movies, videogames, music, gun safety advocates, President Obama, hurricanes, terrorism, gunman.
Better yet, the NRA wants “an active national database of the mentally ill”; sensible people everywhere pop an aneurysm.
In lighter news, contrary to expectations, it seems that 2012 was the best year overall in human history (so far!).
If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.
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Fiend of Preliator Theodore “Vox Day” Beale does have a thing for inane rhetorical games, with his usual reaction in the wake of atrocities being to target the public outcry with attempts to dissect and belittle the supposed irrationality of the outraged and the bereaved. The rising, widespread chorus for more reasonable gun control in the wake of the Connecticut school shooting is no different, with Vox’s main reaction – literally (and tellingly) titled “What is wrong with killing children?” – being to castigate supporters of various unrelated issues such as philosophical materialism and even abortion by attempting to tie it all to his kind’s fetishism for gun ownership:
One of the interesting things I've noticed about all the emotional posturing about the Connecticut public school shootings is that a fair share of it is being done by people who claim there is no God, no good, and no evil. […]
The logical fact of the matter is that if there is no divine spark within us, if we are merely bits of stardust that happens to have congregated in one of many possible manners, then therre is nothing wrong or objectionable in rearranging the stardust a little. What difference does it make to an atom if it now happens to be part of arrangement X instead of arrangement Y? What difference does it make to the universe?
As always with Beale, the obvious problem with his inquiries – beyond their blatant dishonesty – is the utter cluelessness they betray about the critics he so delights in haranguing. If Vox were actually serious about understanding the materialistic/humanistic viewpoint, he would have long ago realized that contrary to theists’ routine depictions of us, we have no interest in distilling moral issues down to coldly analytical thought experiments. Rather, we recognize that human beings are inherently emotional and moral creatures, having developed these qualities during the course of our evolution (and that no divinity or other supernatural force is responsible). Emotions and morals are an integral part of Homo sapiens, as much as our eyes, hair and gallbladders, and trying to deny this, or to sidestep it by viewing the world through a zero-sum lens, reveals only the intellectual dishonesty of those who caricaturize us or accuse us of their own worst traits.
No, the universe does not care about the brutal murders of twenty innocent schoolchildren and six adults. But we do. We are hardwired to care about such things, regardless of religious beliefs or ideological worldview. Only those who suffer from some psychological or neurological impairment – or, say, from being egregiously narcissistic and borderline sociopathic assholes whose sole reaction to horrible acts is to launch mindless swipes at their ideological opponents over topics that have nothing to do with the matter at hand – can see such events as mere intellectual curiosities or opportunities to launch pseudo-philosophical debates.
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| Laurie Penny |
My sincerest wishes for any Connecticut readers and their families’ safety.
The Onion voices my thoughts on today’s horrors. (But remember, folks: NOW IS TOTALLY NOT THE TIME TO TALK ABOUT GUNS NO NEVER.)
Meanwhile, noted policy expert Vox Day proposes the “meaningful action” of banning public schools. And movie theaters, shopping centers and public rallies, of course.
I’m sure Laurie Penny [pictured] is just making it all up, too, ’cause we all know misogyny isn’t a real problem on the Internets. (Oldie but goodie.)
(via @BadAstronomer)
And finally, here’s a much-needed chaser for the day:
If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.
The inane talking heads posing as journalists over at Fox News recently got their Second-Amendment-embroidered undies in a bunch when NBC sportscaster Bob Costas dared to break lockstep with the punditry’s complacence with the United States’s pervasive gun culture. As always, leave it to The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart to attempt to hammer home some basic common sense, not that he has much of a chance with their skulls so abnormally thick. Parts one and two:
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JON STEWART: But recently, the sports world has suffered some tragic off-the-field incidents. The Dallas Cowboys lost a player in a drunk driving accident this past weekend; a murder-suicide involving a Kansas City Chiefs linebacker the weekend before. That led to sports commentator Bob Costas commentating on this during halftime in the Cowboys-Eagles game.
BOB COSTAS [12/06/12]: You want some actual perspective on this? Well, a bit of it comes from the Kansas City-based writer Jason Whitlock. […] From the end of his article: “Our current gun culture,” Whitlock wrote, “ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy.” […] “In the coming days, Jovan Belcher’s actions and their possible connection to football will be analyzed. Who knows? But here,” wrote Whitlock, “is what I believe. If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Cassandra Perkins would both be alive today.”
STEWART: “And now, the marching band!”
All right, obviously, there’s a tragedy, it’s more complicated than that, and if we’re gonna start addressing issues, we can begin with gun culture, but you gotta talk about domestic abuse, mental illness, the head trauma, football, the drugs they give the guys for pain; I’m assuming Costas was leaving that to Cleatus, the Fox Robot, to take care of. But still!
What he was doing was trying to start a conversation, and … he succeeded.
LAURA INGRAHAM [12/04/12]: That belonged on NBC cable channel, I mean, you kinda expect that over there. You don’t expect that during a football game.
ERIC BOLLING [12/03/12]: It’s NFL Sunday, it’s halftime, ‘God Bless America’’s playing in the background. Do I really want Bob Costas giving me a dissertation on the Second Amendment? […] I wanna watch football!
STEWART: Really? ’Cause that’s when I go take a piss, but okay.
Yes, an NFL halftime show is no time to talk about violence in the NFL! It’s a time to watch endless slow-motion replays of that day’s hardest hits. “Zoinks! That was a great hit! Yeah, I think the guy’s brain came out of his ear-hole on that one! Suck it up like a man! Of course, he’ll never be the same again. All right, well done.”
JON STEWART: So, halftime isn’t the right time. Now, what about at a press conference? Like after the Aurora shootings, when the Mayor of New York called for an examination of gun laws?
KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE [07/23/12]: There were also bodies not even out of the theater, Dana, before he started to jump in this debate. Now, I think there is some level of political protocol that you need to have in a tragedy like this where you wait.
JUDGE JEANINE PIRRO [07/27/12]: Be quiet for 24 hours, at least!
STEWART: Clearly, in that situation, it’s not where it is being discussed, it’s when. I’m assuming that the venue was good; just that the mayor did not obey the commonsense waiting period we place on gun … conversations. You don’t want somebody in an emotional state just shooting off their … mouths.
But of course, it’s not just the “where” and the “when” of the conversation about guns; it’s the “who”!
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN [12/03/12]: Is this what you really wanna hear at halftime, sportscaster Bob Costas lecturing football fans – that means you – about gun control?
LAURA INGRAHAM [12/04/12]: Mr. Costas, you don’t know that much what you’re talking about, so stick to the area that you’re really smart about, which is sports. […] I wrote a book called Shut Up and Sing; this would be “Shut Up and Commentate on Sports”, because we’re not really interested in what Bob Costas thinks about guns.
STEWART: Right, but … why do you get to talk? ’Cause I – if I may, very quickly, no disrespect – I don’t much care what you have to say about anything. Yet, whenever I turn on the TV, you’re there, talking about everything. That’s the subject of my book, “Shut Up and Shut Up.”
So clearly, sports commentators, they don’t get to comment about gun violence, and singers don’t get to comment about gun violence, either, right, Fox?
FOX HOST #1 [12/03/12]: Ted Nugent issued a quote, saying, “We thought Bob Costas was smarter than that. Only fools blame tools instead of human failings.”
STEWART: How come that guy doesn’t have to shut up and sing? Or shut up and whatever it is that he does?
I’m beginning to figure out the rules, though. If you wanna talk about gun violence, gun culture, gun control, you gotta be a gun expert. You can’t just be some sportscaster or musician. And even the right person can’t talk about it if it’s too soon after a tragedy; it’s disrespectful. How long do you have to wait to say there should be more guns after a tragedy, like the shooting in Oslo?
FOX CONTRIBUTOR [07/24/11]: You have 600 people there, Geraldo –
GERALDO RIVERA: On that island.
CONTRIBUTOR: – on that island, and the security procedures that were there were noneffective. […] If you have a gun, Geraldo, you don’t have security. I have a big laugh when they ask me for a security guard, “but we don’t want them to have a gun.” If you don’t want security to have a gun, then you’re not having security.
STEWART: “That’s the thing about these Norwegians, lemme tell you somethin’. They don’t understand how much they need guns. It’s a harpoon culture. D’you understand what I’m sayin’? They shoot whales! They don’t know [?].”
That was about the mass killing in Norway, but at least they respectfully waited until … 48 hours afterwards. See, in fact, if you wanna have a conversation about our gun culture, you better make sure you’re being tasteful and respecting the victims and their families. Of course, if you’re trying not to have that conversation …
ERIC BOLLING [12/03/12]: This guy, six- – I dunno, 6’4”, 320 [lbs], he could’ve killed her with his bare hands. It wasn’t a gun that killed her, it was Jovan Belcher that killed her.
INGRAHAM [12/04/12]: I guess Costas does not think Belcher is strong enough to asphyxiate his girlfriend, or smart enough to hook up a hose into his garage and kill her through asphyxiation.
MEGYN KELLY [12/03/12]: Look at O.J. Simpson. […] He went over there with a knife, he murdered his ex-wife and her friend.
SEAN HANNITY: Was Nicole Brown killed with a gun, or was she killed with a knife?
STEWART: Yeah! Knife! Knife! Knife! Knife! Nicole Simpson was murdered with a knife! Does Costas wanna ban knives? ’Cause then, we’d have to cut steak with our guns, and that would be terrible!
Still, I think I get the rules now. I’m just trying to get the rules. You can talk about guns, just not in the immediate wake of any event involving guns. But with approximately 30 gun-related murders daily in the United States, when will it ever be the right time to talk about the issue?
CNN HOST [11/29/12]: A rare moment in New York City. Police say there were no reported slaying, stabbings, shootings or knifings during a 36-hour period from Sunday night to Tuesday morning.
STEWART: Aah, it was two weeks ago! We missed the [fucking] window! But why ruin the celebration?
“[W]hy do you get to talk? ’Cause I … don't much care about what you have to say about anything. Yet, whenever I turn on the TV, you’re there, talking about everything.” Perfect.
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| Jack Wu [source] |
The king always feels he is being wronged when the starving peasants rise up and oust him from his throne. #MaleDecline
Stephanie Coontz at The New York Times destroys the myth that men are being treated as inferior to women in this modern society. I wonder if I’ll receiving some more amusing anti-feminist attempts to refute established facts in my Twitter @mentions feed.
(via atheismplus | Reddit)
Massive earthquakes in Indonesia signal the impending break-up of the Indo-Australian tectonic plate … over the next few million years.
(via The Daily Grail)
“If you're mainstream, you're going to hell”: Westboro Baptist Church attendee [pictured] runs for Kansas Board of Education seat.
(via @BadAstronomer)
Australia’s ABC program Media Watch rips into WIN News’s false-balance-driven promulgation of “vaccines cause autism” garbage from Meryl Dorey from the antivax Australian Vaccination Network.
(via @BadAstronomer)
And finally, the Discovery Channel is set to embarrass itself again, this time with an ode to the U.S.’s gun craze hosted by reactionary flywheel Ted Nugent.
If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.
Tags: Stephanie Coontz • men • women • male decline • tectonic plates • Indo-Australian plate • earthquakes • Jack Wu • Westboro Baptist Church • Topeka, KS • Kansas State Board of Education • ABC News • Media Watch • WIN News • Meryl Dorey • Australian Vaccination Network • AVN • Discovery Channel • Ted Nugent • Ted Nugent's Gun Country
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| Mike Rowe |
Mother Jones report decimates the Right-wing trope that armed civilians could help prevent mass shootings.
(via Media Matters for America)
Mecklenburg County, Virginia Republicans want you to know they’re still a bunch of bigoted jackholes.
I have mixed feelings about seeing my beloved Mike Rowe [pictured] (of Dirty Jobs) endorse Mitt Romney. He seems to do it in the same tepid manner as Clint Eastwood: “All I really care about is the general people, and I’m a bit confused about Obama’s role in all this, so I’ll go with the other guy, whoever it is.” As long as he and Eastwood don’t turn regressive wingnut, I’ll still love ’em and enjoy their shows/movies.
If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.
![Joé McKen (18) [taken 07/13/10]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_t2wFSl18Xb1mqyiUupIS8CV0ypPg7grW6Vky2K1HqOxUbHf2w8C41-VZ-rHMh-XMSCdCX2toOhQvFFA8DQCo8=s0-d "Joé McKen (18) [taken 07/13/10]")
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I’m a liberal skeptic, rationalist & third-wave atheist stuck in a rut in Québec, Canada and who spends his time composing, writing, drawing, harboring a layman’s passion for science and technology, getting angry at social injustices, and most of all, jabbing cretins and trolls with sharp pointy sticks. (Oh, and blogging.) Proud owner of a Nize Hat!, an indomitable SIWOTI syndrome and an itchy snark finger.
You can find all my musical, literary and artistic works at my art blog, Creativitas.
![There is probably no [superstition]. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life](http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad171/crispianjago/Probably-No.gif "There is probably no [superstition]. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life")
