The Right To Bear Arms and Shoot Lots of People

The post below, written in response to the Tucson shooting, is a partial re-up. To put the thing in its proper perspective, below are a few lines of the report that I responded to. Albeit in my usual semi-irreverent way. Deservedly so I think, reverence and insanity being the poor bed fellows that they are.

Two Unasked Questions in Tucson Mass Murder

Serious Guns and White Terrorism

Question: How does a mentally unstable man who was kicked out of school and had run-ins with the law buy such a serious weapon? Article

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Originally posted under the title: Tom DeLays Going to Jail and Other Tales From The Gulag

Question: How does a mentally unstable man who was kicked out of school and had run-ins with the law buy such a serious weapon?.........




........The federal background check for people purchasing such weapons only prohibits selling such weapons to people who have been legally determined to be mentally defective or found insane or convicted of crimes. This man had not been found legally mentally defective or convicted, so he was legally entitled to purchase an assault weapon. In Arizona, he was legally entitled to carry the weapon in a concealed manner..........

..........The US has well over 250 million guns in private hands according to the National Rifle Association. That is more, according to the BBC, than any country in the world. In one year, guns murdered 17 people in Finland, 35 in Australia, 39 in England and Wales, 60 in Spain, 194 in Germany, 200 in Canada and 9,484 in the United States according to the Brady Campaign.

Answers, take your pick: America has a hard on for guns. He lives in America. America is full of inadequates. America has no cultural history other than a violent one. The Second Amendment ain't all its cracked up to be. America has Fox News. Fox News is full of right wing nutjobs, see article below. America is full of right wing nutjobs, see Tiller the Killer link below. America has a hard on for guns. more

The right to bear arms

Big gun, small dick

I don't know when it will be this fellows turn to make the news, but I will guarantee one thing, it will be before he gets laid. Mad as a fucking brush! and twice as inadequate.

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Fox News: The No. 1 Name in Murder Fantasies

Bill O'Reilly's recent "joke" about decapitating Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank was only the latest example of a demented Fox News culture that permits on-air personalities to fantasize about assassination and other forms of violence against those deemed enemies of the station, its personalities or their worldview.

During the cable channel's 2008 election coverage, in what she later called an attempt at humor, Fox News contributor Liz Trotta linked Osama bin Laden to Barack Obama as people who both should be assassinated:

And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama, uh Obama. Well, both, if we could.

A week before Trotta's "joke," Republican primary candidate Mike Huckabee was apologizing for his own Obama assassination quip. Addressing a gathering of the National Rifle Association, Huckabee joked that a loud thud heard backstage during his address was Barack Obama diving to the floor to avoid gun shots. Months later, Huckabee was given his own Fox News show.

With its biggest new star, Glenn Beck, Fox News hired a host well-known for on-air death fantasies--for instance, chattering about killing filmmaker Michael Moore with his bare hands and hoping out loud that Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D.-Ohio) would burn to death. In a Fox News skit in September 2009, Beck portrayed himself poisoning Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

It's a culture that apparently filters down to Fox News viewers and supporters. Over the years Fox Nation, the Fox News "owned and operated" fan website, has regularly featured comments expressing the desire to see Barack Obama's assassinated. more

Previous: "..after the slaying of Tiller the Killer" Now posted immediately below this post.

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The Wrath of Fools: An Open Letter to the Far RightWilliam Rivers Pitt

......At the time of this writing, Rep. Giffords is lying in a hospital bed in critical condition. The God you Bible-spewing frauds love to flog the rest of us with must have been in that supermarket crowd with her on Saturday, with His hand on her shoulder, because it is nothing short of a full-fledged miracle she survived at all. Doctors are actually cautiously optimistic that she will survive, though the degree to which she will ultimately recover is still sorely in doubt. She can respond to simple commands, according to her doctors, and is marginally able to communicate. If she survives her wound, it is wretchedly certain her life will never, ever be the same.

I just thought you should know a few things about the people you helped into their graves and hospital beds this weekend.

Yes, you.

You false patriots who bring assault rifles to political rallies, you hack politicians and media personalities who lied through your stinking teeth about "death panels" and "Obama is coming for your guns" and "He isn't a citizen" and "He's a secret Muslim" and "Sharia Law is coming to America," you who spread this bastard gospel and you who swallowed it whole, I am talking to you, because this was your doing just as surely as it was the doing of the deranged damned soul who pulled the trigger. The poison you injected into our culture is deeply culpable for this carnage.

You who worship Jesus at the top of your lungs (in defiance of Christ's own teachings on the matter of worship, by the way) helped put several churchgoers into their graves and into the hospital. You who shriek about the sanctity of marriage helped cut down a man who was about to be married. You who crow with ceaseless abandon about military service and the nobility of our fighting forces helped to critically wound the wife of a Naval aviator who fought for you in a war. You who hold September 11 as your sword and shield helped put a little girl born on that day into the ground.

You helped. Yes, damn you, you helped. more

But for the icing on the cake, I pray beg you, read the few comments at the original post.

Footnote: Not only do Americans not do irony very well, they do seem to have a similar problem with symbolism. And for a fellow, me, that has put a budget that would be the envy of many a small nation down the barrel of skeet and trap guns, I do know a little about guns.

Previous and a interesting read: Oath Keepers and the Age of Treason