I was listening to the Ed Schultz show, and some deranged right-winger called in and blamed “bloodthirsty anti-gun liberals” (WTF, right?) and fantasized about how an armed audience would have ended the killing spree before it began. Yeah, a dozen people blazing away in a dark, noisy theater wouldn’t have resulted in many more deaths… right.

I have to say, I do hate them. As much as I’ve tried to empathize, I just can’t anymore.

If ever there WAS a time to talk about instating or reinstating gun laws, NOW is the time. But even Obama is too chicken to say so. I’ll be interested in hearing what Alan Grayson has to say.

Of course the Reich Wingers will say the solution is to heavily arm Everyone! If the audience could’ve shot back then Frontier Justice would’ve been meted out and it would truly be America, and any collateral damage would’ve been worth showing our mettle.

And of course Obama won’t say one word about making guns less available to psychos. The Demos will continue to cringe on the issue and serve the same Banksters their Repuke brethren do. A couple days of faux mourning in the media, and it’ll all be swept under the rug so we can pay attention to important issues like Tom & Katie’s split.

Glad I’m not young and stupid enough to be “entertained” by the H-wood Blockbusters, less likely to be a victim.

B^4, see Thread Bear’s comment in the last thread. http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/37344.html#comment-1286329

See also the Onion(?) story about the NRA conference.

Liberals seem to be fending off “the movie made him do it” attacks.

(Yes, I know, he hadn’t seen it yet. It was the spirit of the movie, or the two earlier ones, or whatever.)

Oh, one more elephant in the room, I left unmentioned?

How about the fact that the right wing has been wailing like fucking banshees for weeks about Fast and Furious and how Holder needs to resign and blah blah blah?

When the whole Fast and Furious is a paranoid wingnuttification of the fact that Mexican Drug Lords have realized that American gun laws are so lax they can just walk across the border to gun shows and outfit their entire army.

And yeah, about that. Maybe we should care about gun laws so lax that some college kid with an ill-fought out suicide by cop plan he was too chicken to go through with was able to deck themselves out in military grade assault rifles, combat shotguns, tear-gas grenades, gas mask, body armor, assault helmet, etc…

Cause it might not be helping the body counts from these things that the right of some wingnuts to use an AK-47 as a penis extension trumps the right of people not to die by the dozens because some coward wanted to feel like a badass.

The proper response to such an atrocity is rage.

I imagine that rage led Holmes to engage in his murder spree to begin with. Charen merely wants us to focus on Holmes alone, and to ignore the elephant in the room- the fact that our policies regarding firearms are completely fucked up.

We don’t need rage, we need self-reflection on a societal scale.

B^4-

But-but-but tragically overpowered firearms are the only ways wingnuts can feel they have an erect penis longer than 3 inches.

Isn’t preserving that worth a few dozen innocent victims every couple of months?

The fact is, holy fuck.

I admit to having fantasized about taking the shooter out with my hands, breaking his neck. I have had such thoughts before, imagining myself in the presence of a killer, and turning helplessness into heroism. Those fantasies are no basis for big-picture policy, or even for response to a crisis I may find myself in. I’m not ruling out heroism and resourcefulness, just recognizing that I may not be onto something when I’m running those scenes in my head.

Some of you may recall the story of my cousin who was shotgunned to death in his sleep by his wife. He lived every day armed in preparation for a tragedy like Aurora, Colorado. He saw violence as a cop and a marine. But as a civilian, all his gun collection did was give his killer a choice of what to shoot him with. His training and physical conditioning gave her a reason to catch him unawares. His personality led him to think he could dominate her (and worse?) forever with no repercussions.

Americans are buying too many guns for situations that are infrequent and don’t merit such big arsenals. Hunting. Self-defense. What happens more frequently? Gun violence by criminals. Rampant theft of guns. Sales of guns over the border to Mexican cartels. We feed all that with more than enough guns and ammo for a lengthy civil war. We justify it with a bit of hunting and a much littler bit of self-defense. How many guns do we really need, and who needs them? These are pointless questions in a free society, I guess, but I can pass judgment on a ridiculous proliferation, poorly justified.

American Sacred Cows: the NRA, Our Troops (TM), Our Olympic Athletes (who can take commercial sponsorships and steroids, but shouldn’t be insulted by wearing uniforms made by stinkin’ Chinese peasants).

Yep, I detect some serious overcompensation, apparently in the penile area.

But-but-but tragically overpowered firearms are the only ways wingnuts can feel they have an erect penis longer than 3 inches.

“I feel that I don’t need Viagra,
In fantasies, I merely frag ya.
The images of spurting blood
Send tingles to my feeble pud.”

Too soon? It’s weird, because sitting in my safe Northeastern home, the semi-regular occurrence of mass murders has become somewhat surreal, a dispatch from an alien planet…

I was listening to the Ed Schultz show, and some deranged right-winger called in and blamed “bloodthirsty anti-gun liberals” (WTF, right?) and fantasized about how an armed audience would have ended the killing spree before it began.

Was Louie Gohmert the caller?
~

Since there is no snark for it :

The legal definition of “well regulated militia” should mean a registered group of at least three people that are responsible for ALL consequences of any of their born arms.

Turn the single point of failure into a triple redundant back up.

Oh wow on the Louie Gohmert bit.

I “like” the cohost Ernest Istook looking briefly at the picture of the gunman and putting two and two together that the killer is likely going to be a WASP conservative gun nut and trying to ixnay on the errorismtay in case the right wing needs to turtle and call him an isolated crazy person.

You know, I like own guns and I own quite a few.

That being said, the idea that I would take on a psychotic shooter in a crowded movie theater, in the dark, with a concealed handgun is just fucking insane.

I’d be taking the buttons off my shirt just so I could get that much lower to the floor.

The proper response to such an atrocity is rage.

I never respond to anything without first checking with Mona to find out what’s proper.

the idea that I would take on a psychotic shooter in a crowded movie theater, in the dark, with a concealed handgun is just fucking insane.

“Just fucking insane” is a pretty good capsule description of Louie Gohmert.

And in case no one’s linked to this already, some brief but worthwhile comments from Paul Campos of Lawyers, Guns, & Money.

If you want to see a country which has armed itself to its cliched teeth against an invasion threat which exists only in the national mythology, visit that rampaging hellhole known to the outside world as “Switzerland.”

The problem in America isn’t the guns, it’s the moronic Gunfighter Nation culture. (And I’d rather eliminate the Mexican drugs gangs by the simple expedient of removing their reason to exist, by decriminalizing their product lines.)

Tens of thousands of Americans die each year in car crashes. Some fraction may be murders. But we don’t talk about banning cars.

Tens of thousands of Americans die each year in car crashes. Some fraction may be murders. But we don’t talk about banning cars.

Whoever you are, you can’t be as dumb as you sound.

Cars exist to transport people and things.

Guns exist to shoot people and things.

See the difference?

Tens of thousands of Americans die each year in car crashes. Some fraction may be murders. But we don’t talk about banning cars.

Perhaps not, but we try to take reasonable steps. We set standards for street legal cars and by doing so we have banned cars. You are banned from driving a funny car dragster down main street. We also require various safety equiptment, some aimed exclusively at protecting children. In a reasonable society, we would be able to do these same things for guns.

This, I hesitate to use the word ‘person’, Charen. The ghouls are looking at her, saying, “For fuck’s sake, what in the hell is your deal?!?”

Lost my sense of humor? Been there. Lost my capability for outrage?

Shit, man, getting there.

I truly despise these people, and would go so far as to say ‘hate’, the stupidest, ugliest word in the dictionary.

Heard about the shootings this AM, got home to read up, saw Gohmert’s vomit, christgoddammit.

Seeing my wingnut sister this weekend – I adore her, her husband, and kid, but we know better than to discuss politics. But I’m pissed, and eggshells better be walked on.

In light of the horrific mass murder at Virginia Tech this week I am focusing this blog on the symptoms of a Mass Murder. These studies were published a few years ago in The Journal of Psychiatry. More information about paranoia, schizophrenia and other disorders can be found at Psych-Net Mental Health. 

These statistics were derived from a study of mass murders age 13-19 who killed 3 or more people in one event. The sample consisted of males with a median age of 17. 

The majority were described as loners 

Most abused alcohol or drugs 

Almost half were bullied by others 

Preoccupied with violent fantasy 

Had a violent history 

23% had a documented psychiatric history but only 6% were judged to have been psychotic at the time of the mass murder 

Depressive symptoms 

A history of antisocial behaviors 

A precipitating event in most cases-usually a perceived failure in love or school 

Most subjects made threatening statements regarding the mass murder to third parties

The majority of the sample clustered into three types:

the family annihilator, 

the classroom avenger, 

and the criminal opportunist. 

The adolescent mass murderer is often predatorily rather than affectively violent and typically does not show any sudden or highly emotional warning signs. Although the act of mass murder is virtually impossible to predict because of its extremely low frequency, certain clinical and forensic findings can alert the clinician to the need for further, intensified primary care, including family, school, community, law enforcement, and mental health intervention.

Given that the would-be-mass-murderer avails themselves of such services.

http://psych-net-mentalhealth.blogspot.com/2007/04/profile-of-mass-murderer.htmls

And from scientists who are exploring the role of hegemonic masculinity in mass murderers:

There is a contrary view, which sees the crazed killer explanatin which depicts the mass murderer as an unemployed loner who is psychotic, as a myth which should be dispelled. Generally, mass murderers are employed with a married or unmarried partner. The psycho-myth occurs because the mass murderers break the basic societal norms and rules around which the community coalesces, so they are seen as abnormal when they are quite normal. Rarely is the mass murderer a crazy killer.

and this

The pseudocommando type often have a long-standing fascination with weapons and who plan their mass murders to settle real or imagined grudges with individuals who have harmed them or with society at large.

which sounds oddly familiar, no?

http://mona-uwi.academia.edu/ChristopherADCharles/Papers/1266846/Hegemonic_Masculinity_and_Mass_Murderers_in_the_United_States

More on the pseudo-commando

Dietz offers yet another type of mass murderer. The
Pseudocommando is preoccupied with weaponry.
Often the killer stockpiles exotic weapons in his home.
Assault weapons, machine guns, even hand grenades
are not unknown to this mass murderer.

Mass homicide usually occurs after a long period of deliberation and careful planning.

There is no clear understanding of the etiology of the Pseudocommando. Certainly there are social components to the behavior-the killer’s world plays an integral part in his behavior. But the Pseudocommando lashes out at society in a most grotesque way. Something in his world is not correct, and he will “teach the world a lesson” by his behavior.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/136809NCJRS.pdfs

Also, there was a lot of mention in articles I read about “narcissism” and competitiveness. It’s not unusual for a mass murderer to be quite aware of other mass murderers and their stats and to try to top them.

There is an enormous difference between mental illness and psychopathology.

You fuckers are ghouls: http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/abc-news-apologizes-for-tea-party-blood.html

visit that rampaging hellhole known to the outside world as “Switzerland.”

True, but I believe the Swiss are all part of a “well-regulated militia”. Say, that sounds kind of familiar. Where have I heard that before?

Romney’s response is probably just the result of not really giving a shit, but trying to look like he cares and not a “Freudian slip:

“Today is to remember and reach out and remember our blessings in life. Each of us will hold family close and spend a little less time thinking about worries of day and helping those in need of compassion.”

Odd ambiguity.

You fuckers are ghouls

We lack the integrity and human decency needed to maintain the high moral standards of the right.

True, but I believe the Swiss are all part of a “well-regulated militia”. Say, that sounds kind of familiar. Where have I heard that before?

Yeah, the Swiss go on maneuvers, real maneuvers rather than a bunch of obese d-bags running around the woods harboring “Red Dawn” fantasies and racial anxieties.

Progressives are Ghouls said

Looks like Donalde wants attention.
~

visit that rampaging hellhole known to the outside world as “Switzerland.”

They are heavily armed there, each citizen is required by law to carry at all times two knives, a can opener, a bottle opener, a flat head screwdriver, a phillips head screwdriver, a pair of scissors, a leather punch, a corckscrew and a toothpick.

What about the tweezers? WON’T SOMEBODY THINK ABOUT THE TWEEZERS?

It wouldn’t be out of place for the president and the man who hopes to replace him to refer to the shooter as a “monster.”

Oh, sure, mere hours after the incident, the president should weigh in and affect the prosecution of the shooter.

Aren’t these the same wingnuts that got outraged when Obama mildly described the Cambridge cop’s manhandling of Skip Gates as “acting stupidly”?

I’m also pretty sure that calling a man who just committed dozens of felonies “a monster” is unlikely to ruffle his feathers.

We’ve become beaten dogs, because the frustration of interacting with the most heinous ghoulish beings imaginable and futilely struggling to explain “empathy” and “personal responsibility” to them has exhausted us completely.

Fixed that for you, Cerb. As I belatedly realized I should’ve said in my comment on the previous post: when Repukes style themselves “the party of personal responsibility”, what they really mean is “the party of holding the Democrat [sic] party personally responsible for everything bad that’s happened in or to America since at least 1933”.

Looks like Donalde wants attention.

He tried painting his ass purple and crawling through the monkey house, but even the mandrills were turned off by his scent of pathos and flopsweat.

For those keeping score at home:

Ghouls point out why these horrors occur & try to stop more of them.

Patriots do whatever it takes to guarantee more of them will happen.

Louis Gohmert said the shootings were because we’ve been attacking Judeo-Christian beliefs (which have always had a cozy relationship with guns). But what did other conservatives have to say about the Aurora shooting? Pottersville has the scoop.

Crappy day for humor, but

jim the heretical Anti-Cliff Lemming

is the nym of the year…

So ABC made an unforgivably stupid mistake regarding the identity and affiliations of James Holmes, and this somehow reflects poorly on progressives?

The discourse around this event is sure to get stupider, but the bar has been set pretty low already …

So ABC made an unforgivably stupid mistake regarding the identity and affiliations of James Holmes,

Actually, one reporter on ABC. One.

Actually, one reporter on ABC. One.

Yes, Aunt Snow, but that reporter speaks for all of us Obamabots, so say we all.

Sorry about that, eh?

nym of the year

Merci buckets!

I may stick with this one for a while, who knows … just trying to pick up some of the slack left from the unfortunate departure of The Goddamned Batman, with varying degrees of success.

The unexamined funless life is not worth living, as some dead Greek dude should’ve said.

……….. & for the Trifecta:

HA HA HA OH WOW

Sorry about that, eh?

No foul, old chum. Are you hiring domestic help of “south of the border”?

Cities and towns won’t need to ask for an act of a bank-subsidized congress to do this, and they won’t need a federal judge to sign off on any settlement. They can just do it.

I’ve been waiting for this to happen. Banks are causing blight, and cities have the means to deal with that.

And as a reminder, guns don’t kill kids, Kinder Surprises kill kids.

America is being invaded by non-nutritive objects!

Living in China I get questioned frequently about American gun culture, from my students, taxi drivers, people on the train, et cetera. So an event like this will cause an exponential increase in the amount of questioning. Yes I own a gun. A bird gun. I shoot birds. Then I eat them. Mostly, lately, when I am home, I have just been shooting skeet. Those turkeys are fukin’ smart, smarter than me anyway! I keep my gun at my brother-in-law’s house, in his gun safe. The type of high powered weaponry used in this recent case of criminal insanity has no function other to kill as many people as rapidly as possible, and should not be so easily obtained as this one was. In fact, they should not be obtained at all outside of active duty military personel in a battle field situation. Sheesh. There will always be plenty of ways to kill people as we saw just last week when another crazed shithead killed with a backpack. Also, too, 6000 rounds bought over the internets! That right there is fucking insane.

Mikhail Kalashnikov
In his youth, Kalashnikov wrote poetry, and his dream was to become a poet. He went on to write six books and continued to write poetry all his life. In 1938, Kalashnikov was conscripted into the Red Army, and became a tank driver and mechanic, achieving the rank of senior sergeant tank commander. He was wounded in combat during the Battle of Bryansk in October 1941. While in the hospital, Kalashnikov began designing a submachine gun. “I’m proud of my invention, but I’m sad that it is used by terrorists. I would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work — for example a lawn mower.”

That reads like a class assignment–write five to ten sentences about a current event every day in your journal–for a class that uses Liberal Fascism as a text book.

I just came back from Dark Knight Rises.

Short recommendation: Do not watch.

I don’t know what ferret crawled up Christopher Nolan’s ass and died, but it’s a complete cynical wingnut-argument-infused mess of a movie wherein no one does anything that makes sense, but it’s okay because character motivations are for pansies.

It’s very clear he didn’t have a third movie in him and resented the studio for forcing him to make one anyway.

“… a movie wherein no one does anything that makes sense, but it’s okay because character motivations are for pansies.”

So TDKR has double the same problems TDK had, but with even less narrative connective tissue? No surprise there. Nolan’s big failing is that he puts staying ahead of the audience over story logic. And the “set piece every twenty minutes no matter what” dictates of blockbusterdom movie making hasn’t helped. It’s a shame, for he does pay way more attention to characterization and dialogue than most working the big-budget farm.

It looked pretty joyless from the trailers, and several reviews mentioned Bane’s muffled delivery– it was bad enough putting up with whatever the hell Christian Bale was trying to do with his Batman voice.

To inject some levity into this forum:

Mark Steyn actually uses the phrase “the Jerry Sandusky of climate change” with a straight face.

I, for one, welcome our new Canadian overlords.

No, really. REALLY.

**SPOILER ALERT**: TDKR Magnificent … And Most Conservative Film Ever

I thought Pee-Wee Herman’s Big Adventure was the most conservative movie ever. Have I been misled?

@Cerberus: one difference is that fast and furious put guns into the hands of BROWN lunatics.

Mark Steyn actually uses the phrase “the Jerry Sandusky of climate change” with a straight face.

Wow … he’s quoting someone else, says he wouldn’t pursue the metaphor quite so far, although he agrees heartily, but prefers a circus ringmaster metaphor.

Also, they’re very concerned about the planet and the economy over there. NRO, bastion of seriousness.

probably the most conservative film of all time.

WTF?!

Christopher Nolan conservative? Kinda doubt it.

> Yes, the entire sum of your life really will be penning barely
> legible apologetica for sociopaths and swindlers.

Beautiful.

But as your reference to anti-{That Rosenfeld Man} have some pity for an whole class of writers and activists who would be much happier and fulfilled as out anti-Semites.

Nolan isn’t conservative, Bruce Wayne is. Duh.

Yeeeeeeeeeeah. No.

To conservatives, everything they like is automatically conservative. If someone is good, s/he is NECESSARILY conservative. Heroic? GOTTA be conservative. It’s such a childish way to think about things.

The proper response to such an atrocity is rage.

Why?

I understand that rage is an appropriate response, but I don’t even know what she thinks she can accomplish with that as the “proper response.”

I know that Charen and other modern conservatives aren’t really happy unless they’re screaming in cartoon fury at something, but who does she want us to get enraged at? The shooter? He’s already in custody. Who else is there to get infuriated at? American gun culture? No, no, we can’t have that, can we?

Aren’t these the same wingnuts that got outraged when Obama mildly described the Cambridge cop’s manhandling of Skip Gates as “acting stupidly”?

Well, here’s a fun thought experiment for ya. If Obama had called the shooter “a monster,” how long do you think it would take for Mona Charen to declare the guy who shot over 70 people a national hero?

To conservatives, everything they like is automatically conservative

“Honey, this bacon cheeseburger you made me is conservative. Thanks!”

I know that Charen and other modern conservatives aren’t really happy unless they’re screaming in cartoon fury at something, but who does she want us to get enraged at? The shooter? He’s already in custody. Who else is there to get infuriated at? American gun culture? No, no, we can’t have that, can we?

I think it’s an attempt to redirect her readers away from a sober, thoughtful consideration of our failed gun policy and our appalling violence problem.

“Honey, this bacon cheeseburger you made me is conservative. Thanks!”

Oh yeah? Well, the wings I made last night were delicious. DELICIOUSLY LIBERAL.

Brendan has an amusing graph.

Oh yeah? Well, the wings I made last night were delicious. DELICIOUSLY LIBERAL.

So you’re saying that … WAIT FOR IT! WAIT FOR IT! They were all left wings?

Yeeeeeeeeeeah. No.

I said “Duh”!

So you’re saying that … WAIT FOR IT! WAIT FOR IT! They were all left wings?

I don’t know whether to laugh or groan. No…wait…I laughed. 😀

I don’t know whether to laugh or groan. No…wait…I laughed. 😀

I imagine it was a groany laugh, a graugh, if you will. “Graugh” can also describe an amusing graph. Now, that goes beyond “portmanteau word”, that’s a “Swiss Army” word.

Brendan has an amusing graph.

That was kinda interesting. I’m on the wrong side a couple of times! Oh no–does this mean I have to vote for Romney?

does this mean I have to vote for Romney?

Of course not. You just have to give him all your money.

And your fillings.

And your My Little Pony fanfic.

FRIENDLY FIRE. There’s no way to know how much influence “Hollywood” and video games have on Americans’ understandings of how gunplay and explosions work, but —

1. In movies and on TV, gunplay and explosions usually don’t cause FFD (friendly fire damage).
2. In video games, gunplay and explosions almost never cause FFD, and when they do, it’s optional.
3. In wingnuts’ imaginations, gunplay and explosions don’t cause FFD.

How is 3. argued in public? Not by saying “my views are based on unrealistic media.” No, what you do is wax serious about military backgrounds, firearms training, etc. (You may have read by now that a skilled good guy could have easily taken out the Colorado killer.) In the case of drones and cluster bombs, the arguments are different, but the veneer of seriousness and expertise is the same. Yet really, I think the core argument for “no FFD” is the same as in media: Friendly Fire is No Fun.

To conservatives, everything they like is automatically conservative

“Honey, this bacon cheeseburger you made me is conservative. Thanks!”

“Baby, that was THE most conservative lapdance EVER. Here’s a buck, don’t spend it all in one place.”

And your My Little Pony fanfic.

What I do at New Clopping Republic is no business of Romney’s!

There’s no way to know how much influence “Hollywood” and video games have on Americans’ understandings of how gunplay and explosions work, but –

Ditto for Americans learning about chemical and biological weapons from a President we all know.

The proper response to a threat (real or manufactured) of chemical or biological attack is NOT to buy plastic sheeting and duct tape, gas masks you’re going to leave in your home or car with no corresponding protective suit and boots, and Rumsfeld’s Cipro which hadn’t even been tested for anthrax yet costs a fortune. Penicillin was proven and effective for Anthrax.

In the case that you do come into contact with a chemical or biological toxin the decontamination process is extremely tedious, particular, and time-consuming and doesn’t guarantee a thing even if you execute it perfectly.

On the whole, I don’t think fearing or raging over a rare and insidious date with death helps much at all. Without skill and knowledge guns and duct tape serve more as talismans than a reliable defense under the best circumstances. We all know what the worst looks like.

Remember how truly awful the Bush years were? Gobsmackingly awful. When I think of mass murder, I can’t not think of the Bush administration, Iraq, and New Orleans. Tragic and hateful as he was, the man in the theater was an amateur. So was Bush, but he had a lot of sway and professionals in his service.

wiley, when Bush entered office, I knew he was wrong for the job, but I never imagined just how bad it would get. I naively thought an array of brighter pros — albeit folks whose ideologies I do not share — would mitigate his potential for damage.

If Americans had more faith in government, if they were less trained to view it as essentially bad, they’d be more capable of placing Bush-era blame where it belongs. Re: chemical and biological attacks, we’re very lucky nothing major was attempted during the Bush years (on us: we used depleted uranium and white phosphorus munitions). Bush and his crew probably had no contigency plans. I was gonna write no real plans, but why hedge: they had no plans for other stuff that DID happen.

Sorry if someone has touched on this already –
Tens of thousands of Americans die each year in car crashes. Some fraction may be murders. But we don’t talk about banning cars.
Yes but we have licensing process that shows a person has some competency operating a car; we require a person owning the car to have insurance; and we have a process to take licenses away from those who can’t be trusted to operate a car safely.

And as a reminder, guns don’t kill kids, Kinder Surprises kill kids.
I have two kinder eggs courtesy of two friends who traveled to Turkey last year. I had never heard of them before. One had a miniature sailboat and the other had a strange looking rabbit holding a small magnifying glass. Both are proudly displayed with all my other chotchkies at work including my inflatable Scream and my box from Mexico showing all manner of people abusing drugs.

Just got back from Kenny and Zuke’s Picklefest. No, it’s not like that at all. http://www.portlandmonthlymag.com/blogs/eat-beat/portland-picklefest-2012-july-2012/

So Teh Ho reports that the Aurora shooting was a false flag attack engineered by Obama to 1) jam the UN vote to ban handguns or somethingn and 2) keep Sherriff Joe Arpaio’s news conference out of the news. FreeRepublic is on the story!

Cerberus:

“exasperate” — you meant “exacerbate”

Maybe she meant to exasperate you.

Cerberus has perturbated Anonymous.

I’m really sick of hearing the argument that if every one carried a weapon this crap wouldn’t happen. Well, who can say that there wasn’t someone else in the audience with a weapon? Surely in Colorado, at a suburban theater, there must have been at least one other person in the crowd packing. So why didn’t this one person shoot back? Fear? Confusion?

I was caught in the middle of a gun battle once outside a pawn shop. As soon as the shooting began I fell instinctively to the ground and covered my head with my hands. I could hear the bullets ricocheting off the wall next to me. A man fell over me and squeezed himself between me and the wall. After a few seconds the shooting stopped. The shooter lay bleeding on the sidewalk about thirty feet away.

I stood up and reached down to help the man next to me to his feet. When he stood up and got his balance, I noticed he was drenched in sweat. I asked him if he was okay and he nodded yes. Then he began to cry. I put my arm around his shoulder and tried to calm him. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a pistol. His hands were trembling. He said he was so scared that he could only think of how to hide his pistol. He offered it to me. He said he didn’t want it any more.

If the pedantry light is on then “college kids writing their thesis” should be plural “theses”.

When I was working on my masters, I was sorely tempted to smear thecal matter all over the walls.

Tens of thousands of Americans die each year in car crashes. Some fraction may be murders. But we don’t talk about banning cars.

Yet, drivers cannot mount machine guns, surface to air missiles, and rpgs on their cars. Cannot lawfully drive drunk or strung out. Cannot kill willy-nilly with their car without facing manslaughter or murder charges and possibly being imprisoned.

Unlike an automatic weapon with a hundred round clip, cars have purposes besides killing groups of people indiscriminately with as little effort as possible and were not designed for that purpose.

If Americans had more faith in government, if they were less trained to view it as essentially bad, they’d be more capable of placing Bush-era blame where it belongs.

That’s a feature, not a bug! The constant litany about the evils of government serve conservatives, who prove their thesis on a constant basis. Of course, the “even-handed” media never wants to place blame on the real culprits.

I stood up and reached down to help the man next to me to his feet. When he stood up and got his balance, I noticed he was drenched in sweat. I asked him if he was okay and he nodded yes. Then he began to cry. I put my arm around his shoulder and tried to calm him. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a pistol. His hands were trembling. He said he was so scared that he could only think of how to hide his pistol. He offered it to me. He said he didn’t want it any more.

Rodert [Robert?] Rudis has an admirable supply of high-grade anecdotes.

I was caught in the middle of a gun battle once outside a pawn shop

Very scary. I’ve been shot at, but never on such a “personal” level (I was in an aircraft at the time).

Wazza wazzup, looney libs, the Mittster is an unstoppable Twittster, gaining followers with an unstoppable Mittmentum!

Badoodle boo-ya!

The commentariat at reddit is on fire, “Mitt is more comfortable hanging out with people more like him, robots.”

Met a woman once who had guns pulled on her in two separate incidents—both times she was tripping, though she hadn’t tripped often. She stopped dropping acid altogether because she couldn’t bear the thought of facing down another gun on acid. It’s trippy logic, but makes sense, nevertheless.

In the hills above Indio, Calif., there’s an abandoned site — little more than cracked foundations, an empty pool, and a few bits of walls — where local bands used to stage concerts, using generators for power. We called the site the “Nudist Colony,” though I don’t know if it ever was one.

Once I was tripping there (20 years ago?) listening to a band when gunfire broke out. Then the lights were cut. Shortly thereafter the police arrived and made everyone leave. It was a bad trip, but not my worst.

This is the site, in the daytime: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQzxuihtdbU

Oh, fuck, my link was missing… Mitt Twitter fail.

Musta been 23 years ago, not that it matters …

Met a woman once who had guns pulled on her in two separate incidents—both times she was tripping…

That would be highly un-copacetic.

Y’know, it seems like these fetishistic gunfappers have some real history deficiency. Yeah, it’s pretty obvious to anyone with three gray cells to rub together that more guns in that theater would have just meant more bullets flying and more dead innocents, but still they whinge. While I know that those clowns are all superman in their own minds, you might think that a brief trip down memory lane could illustrate a few flaws in their brilliant plan.

Once upon a time in North Hollywood, two very fucked up individuals decided to rob a bank. They went well armed and well armored, and it took somewhere north of two hundred of cops nearly forty-five minutes of almost constant gunfire to subdue them. Any asshole that thinks for a second that him and his carry piece porta-penis are going to take out the dude in full combat armor in five seconds with no collateral damage needs to be punched in the head repeatedly by the floor of a well used latrine.

Even in broad daylight, knowing what they were headed into and having been trained to deal with it, and outnumbering the suspects by a hundred to one it took the cops quite a while to wrap that one up. The only reason it wasn’t a record setting death count was that killing people wasn’t actually what the perps were trying to do. It was a robbery first and foremost. If it had been a spree killing like Aurora, well, you can imagine, and no white-hatted pearl-handled knob-fondler would have changed that.

Don’t get me wrong. I like all of our currently active amendments, including the second. I also have no problem with the idea of licensing contingent on training, knowledge and not being fucking crazy. I don’t understand why in an era where virtually every email, phone call and blog post (hi boys) can get filtered through a government surveillance system looking for suspicious words and phrases that might indicate terrorist leanings, the purchase of 6000 rounds of ammunition doesn’t even raise an eyebrow. It’s a very strange country we’ve become.

Yet, drivers cannot mount machine guns, surface to air missiles, and rpgs on their cars.

We can’t?

Oh, shit. BRB…

Being a resident of Sinaloa, excuse me if I gag on both the rationales and the reactions to this latest manifestation of U.S. barbarity.

60,000 people have been murdered here in the last six years during your “proxy war on (some) narcotics exporters” — a supposedly rational response to an economic issue. It almost makes sense, although without access to the high-powered firearms so willingly provided by the customer for said narcotics exports (to both the “forces of law” and the exporters) the butcher’s bill would have been much, much lower.

When ten or twenty or more Mexicans are killed as “collateral damage” you don’t read it in the foreign press, nor even here do you get glowing obituaries of the victims, nor blathering on about the possible psychological or emotional state of the killer. Why? We understand perfectly well what killed those people: U.S. weapons.

The U.S. as a whole may be more self-indulgent, pharmaceutically dependent or even porn addicted (as the British paper The Telegraph seemed to suggest was one of James Holmes’ many “issues”) but what does that have to do with blowing away a dozen plus people? Fucked up people are found all over the world, and sometimes fucked up people do extremely fucked up things. But without the tools you allow to be so readily made available both to your own people and to the rest of the planet, the collateral damages would be much, much lower.

It’s cruel to say this, but frankly, those victims in Colorado were just a cost of doing business the American way.

The proper response to such an atrocity is rage,

This from someone who believes rage is also the proper response for too much milk in her Cheerios

Sadly, now Brian Ross (yes, Brian Ross) represents – in the mind of the right – the voice of progressives/leftists/socialists/gun-stealers.

Also, still waiting for a winger to suggest that Trayvon Martin should have been armed… waiting…

If you want to see a country which has armed itself to its cliched teeth against an invasion threat which exists only in the national mythology, visit that rampaging hellhole known to the outside world as “Switzerland.”

Of course, the reason Swiss people own guns is because the entire nation follows the citizen-soldier model (heh, remember when we had that instead of the current military-industrial monster? but I digress), which means Swiss citizens are required to undergo military training and keep the weapons at home when they’re done with it. In other words, every one of these people went through extensive training and had to prove they could handle their weapons in the most regimented, disciplined environment in the world before they got to take it home.

Somehow that doesn’t seem exactly like “any hillbilly should be able to walk into his local sporting goods store, buy a rifle and have the constitutional right to not even fucking register it.”

The problem in America isn’t the guns, it’s the moronic Gunfighter Nation culture.

That I buy, actually. I’ve heard the same point made by Canadians who point out that gun culture exists in their country too (and most others). It just doesn’t come with the neurotic pornification that you have in the United States.

(Of course, part of that means that you don’t object to reasonable restrictions like “if we’re going to let people own guns let’s make sure they’re registered if only to help the cops track them when they’re misused – you know, like we do to cars and a variety of other things – let’s have a short waiting period to deter people from going out, buying a gun and killing someone in the heat of the moment, and let’s be a little more careful about whether or not the person we’re selling the gun to is a complete fucking nutjob.”)

No, the Swiss comparison doesn’t fly. The American gun culture is closer to Somalia, Afghanistan and the rest of the Failed State fraternity – society awash in guns, rampant religious fundamentalism and government successfully “drowned in the bathtub” so that it can’t restrain either.

So is this the “polite armed society” I was promised?

Fore-warned is four-armed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forearm_(comics)

No, it’s because of the fags. surprise surprise

http://www.hrc.org/blog/entry/afa-officials-disturbing-take-on-co-shooting/

No, it’s because of the fags. surprise surprise

Ho Lee shit. So what is he saying, the shooter was the hand if God here? Tell it to the relatives of these people. And if it’s true that “God will not be silent when He’s mocked,” the folks placing the senseless murders of innocents at his feet better watch the fuck out.

So what is he saying, the shooter was the hand if God here?

It sounded better in the original Arabic.

*kaffkaffkaff* irony*coff*

Will Sexy Snowbilly Gyrl get a TeeVee show that’s way the hell better that St. Sarahcuda’s was?

Will “GoGo” change her face & hairdo to become HAWTMALKINSMASHCLONE?

Will Margo Lane finally have her way & spoil Lamont Cranston?

Stay tuned, ecdysiast-followers!

Shenanigans have their price.

God will not be silent…

So he’ll send a militarily armed psychopath to kill children. Sounds fair.

Once upon a time in North Hollywood, two very fucked up individuals decided to rob a bank. They went well armed and well armored, and it took somewhere north of two hundred of cops nearly forty-five minutes of almost constant gunfire to subdue them. Any asshole that thinks for a second that him and his carry piece porta-penis are going to take out the dude in full combat armor in five seconds with no collateral damage needs to be punched in the head repeatedly by the floor of a well used latrine.

As someone who has been shot AT and survived, I can tell you that without lots and lots of confidence that extensive training provides, you have NO chance on returning fire and ending the threat. I’d also like to point out that having been inside a gas chamber in Army basic training, there is no disputing that it is IMPOSSIBLE to operate a firearm when you can’t see or breathe. I’d also challenge someone to make a headshot while under fire. Or hell, make a 25′ headshot with a pistol at a gun range without bullets whizzing by your head and hitting people and objects around you while you’re incapacitated by tear gas. It’s NOT easy.

Gun nuts live in SUCH a fantasy world. They never stopped playing the cops and robbers/army games they played as children. They just graduated to real bullets when it became legal for them to do so.

Cerb,

I am halfway through this one, and haven’t read the previous one, yet, and will be leaving this port of internet access shortly, but I would like to say, once again, what a fucking treasure you are.

But I guess since Obama von Evil Satan didn’t give you any sound bites to bitch about, you were left holding your smoking vibrator and thinking about your crippling daddy issues.

Fucking Brill, my friend. There is a reason I was (shortly before you got front page duties)
thinking about starting a blog based primarily on stealing your comments from this place.

Anyway, thank you for always seeming to get in my head.

Everyone else, hugs and kisses.

K

Gun nuts live in SUCH a fantasy world.

Fucking WORD!!!!
…

In other news, I am gonna try my hand at some eggrolls this eve.

xoxox.

K
…

My momma always said: life is like a box of comic books.

Hey, remember when I used to do these semi-regularly?

So do I!

So, right on schedule, here’s another new post.

Yes, the entire sum of your life really will be penning barely legible apologetica for sociopaths and swindlers

“Apologiae”. That is all.

Gun nuts live in SUCH a fantasy world.

Bingo. And they are igniting Facebook up with photos of the 2nd amendment (minus the “well-regulated militia” part) and the statement that “one ‘sane’ gun owner could have ended this ‘insane’ act”).

You have got to be kidding me. We all know how responsible and level-headed gun owners are; i.e. George Zimmerman and his reaction to the menacing Arizona Iced Tea can.

Example: my rommmate is an Army veteran. He’s a standup guy who did his duty to pay for college. I asked him, “If you had been armed, would you have shot back?” “Absolutely not,” he replied ,with what I assume was a varient of the 100-yard stare. “I would have ran my ass off. I enjoy living.”

Meanwhile, someone very close to him, who has never served in the military, but carries knifes around (“For protection.”) and is a member of the local gun club is posting nonsense about the 2nd amendment and the one “sane” gun owner.

I would tend to agree with folks who have, you know, training and experience, over a bunch of faux-militia old men who are just a bit upset about their need for Viagra.

Oh, and not surprisingly, all the tropes are here at the WSJ comments section on the article about the advisement hearing of the shooter.

1. Statists* want to take your guns
2. Car crashes kill people, why don’t we ban cars
3. Liberals are the real bigots
4. Tyranny of government (no mention of said government’s drones, tanks, aero-planes
5. You’re a pansy

*Could someone explain this Liberals = Statists meme? I’ve heard it a lot recently and I’m confused. Could it be because I know the definition of “statist”?

I used to pray that this would never happen again, but I can’t in good conscience do that anymore; it’s a waste of time.

So I modified my prayer. Now i pray that the next something like this happens, it happens in a room full of Wayne LaPierre’s grandchildren.

Now my conscience is saying that something’s wrong with the new prayer, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why.

Say folks, don’t forget to check out James Taranto’s Tweet in reaction to the shooting: Why, here it is:

“I hope the girls whose boyfriends died to save them were worthy of the sacrifice.”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/07/worthy.php?ref=fpblg

Classy, huh?

[…] to the Dunning-Kruger effect. If she’s not losing fights against her spellcheck software or demanding specific reactions to national tragedies, she’s declaring war on the concept of the future or something equally brilliant. If she was […]