NY Daily News Slams GOP Presidential Candidates on San Bernardino Response

I almost didn't write up anything on this, only our most recent mass shooting this week. But tomorrow's New York Daily News has a take so refreshing, I had to say something. As is usual, the GOP presidential candidates (who still number in the teens) offered up platitudes about prayer in response to the shooting in San Bernardino. As an atheist, my cynical side rolls its eyes, and says, "Well, that's the least you can do. The very least."

But hold up, several of these guys are actually in the House of Representatives and Senate. They can do more than pray, they can do something meaningful about it, if they wanted to. So, why don't they? Because they're terrified of their own base, and the NRA.

[Excerpt]

New York Daily News Rips GOP Leaders For “Meaningless Platitudes” In Wake Of Mass Shooting

Over the last few years the New York Daily News has devoted countless screaming headlines which denounced the NRA, its head Wayne LaPierre, and many other gun control opponents. . .

Source: Joe.My.God.

Jon Stewart: Open Carry vs. Stand Your Ground

NRA Backtracks: It's Now Not Weird to Strap on Your Gun and Go to Chipotle!

Nope, not weird.
Image from source, Slate.

A little advice, gun people: whatever point you think you're making by strapping an AK-47 (and I give zero shits if I've got the terminology right) to your back, and walk into fast food restaurants, hardware stores or other benign public spaces, you look crazy. You look dangerous. And you're winning zero converts. It doesn't matter one whit if you have the right to do something. I have the right to call you a tiny-dicked, overcompensating douchenozzle, but other than to make this point, I wouldn't do that. Decorum. Maturity. Manners. Get some.

Now, when it comes to the NRA, they put their finger to the wind, and got it shot off by their own members. After previously calling these fast food warriors "weird," they've now back peddled, and are blaming their previous position on some low-level lackey, who was expressing his own personal opinion. On the NRA webpage. Yeah, that makes sense guys, let's go with that!

[Excerpt]
 
NRA Apologizes for Calling Some NRA Members “Downright Weird”

The NRA, last week, took the out-of-character step of telling some of its most enthusiastic supporters of guns and the freedom to take them into your local Chipotle to, you know, maybe take it down a notch. “[A] small number have recently crossed the line from enthusiasm to downright foolishness,” Friday's NRA statement reads. Here’s more. . .

Read more at: Slate

Right Wing World: Sarah Palin Would Torture if She Were in Charge

Oh boy, we really dodged a bullet, didn't we? This gormless, ridiculous woman had a shot at the second-highest elected office in the land. Since she thankfully missed that shot, she's been on a relentless, lucrative, crazy train of embarrassing word salad pronouncements. And just keeps managing to top herself. Looking more and more like a (very masculine) drag queen version of herself, Sarah Palin appeared before the NRA. Apparently not understanding that the topic of the group is guns, Palin decided to announce that she's pro-torture. Well, it was presented as a "joke." And if she were remotely funny. . .well, never mind.  I watched a few moments of the clip linked below, and had to shut it off. That voice could cut glass.


[Excerpt]
 
Sarah Palin: If I Were President ‘Waterboarding Is How We’d Baptize Terrorists’

“. . .If I were in charge,” Palin said, “[America's enemies] would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists. . .”

Read more (with video) at: Mediaite

Another Shooting: This Time a Mall in Paramus, New Jersey

I was listening to someone, I don't even remember who, talking about gun violence in America. It was on liberal talk radio (a rare entity indeed), and I'm not sure if it was a host, or if it was a caller or guest. But basically, they were lamenting that when there is a shooting, the media--with rare exceptions--is expected not to focus on the guns, but the violence. Any attempt to get at the problem (almost said "target") has to tippy-toe past the obvious. It's a minefield of sort of reverse political correctness. Any misstep will bring down the wrath of the NRA and all of Right Wing World.

Sandy Hook was an aberration, probably because it was so unspeakably tragic, involving so many young children. It was the closest we came to actually talking like normal people about guns, but even then, there was a lot of squawking. For some reason, it's perfectly acceptable for the right to get as political as they want about it. More guns is the answer, they say. Everybody from teachers to shop owners to every damned citizen should be armed they say. They expect strapped citizens to go all Dirty Harry on any potential threat, and that it will all work out like an action movie.

And while one side is afraid to argue, and the other side mutters inanities, armed crazy people keep shooting things up.

[Excerpt]

Shooter on the loose at New Jersey mall



A shooter opened fire at a New Jersey mall late Monday, sending panic through the shopping center and igniting a massive police response. The gunman inside Westfield Garden State Plaza Mall in Paramus, New Jersey, has not yet been found during a sweep of the shopping center by Bergen County SWAT, said county Chief of Staff Jeanne Baratta. . .

Read more at: CNN

The Black NRA

Black NRA from Sarah Silverman

School Gunman Stopped by Unarmed (Awesome) Woman

This is a pretty awesome story! An unlikely happy ending to a tense and awful situation. Due to some quick thinking, and a genuinely warm manner, this lady helped save the day, and very probably several lives, maybe even her own. And she didn't need a gun to do it.

[Excerpt]


Nice Time: Good Guy With A Calm Voice Stops A Bad Guy With A Gun



 Here’s an actual hero: Antoinette Tuff, a clerk at Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy in Decatur, Georgia, who talked Michael Brandon Hill into laying down his semiautomatic rifle and abandoning his plan to commit suicide by cop yesterday. Hill had come to the school expecting to shoot up the school and then to die in a shootout with police; instead, Tuff talked to him for an hour while teachers, staff, and 870 children waited in the locked-down building. . .

Read more at: Wonkette

And in case you want to see a little more on the story, here's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell's take, which is pretty awesome too.

 

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Captain Obvious: We Shouldn't Sell Guns to Children

To have a driver's license in most states, you must be at least 16 years old. Cigarette sales are restricted to people who are at least 18 years of age. Voters must also be 18. Alcohol can't be obtained unless you're 21. It's hard to rent a car unless you're at least 25. But they're marketing guns to children?

Guns for kids, named "Crickett" and "Chipmunk?"
From Crickett.com (currently offline).

In the classic movie A Christmas Story, little Ralphie wants nothing more than a Red Ryder BB gun. Of course it's fiction, and takes place in the 1940s, but it's not an unknown desire. In fact, my brother and I received our Daisy (odd name for a gun) BB air rifles at a fairly young age, I'd say between 7 and 9. And we both fired real guns, though only in the immediate presence of a parent or grandparent. We grew up around guns, some locked (barely) away, and some out in the open. We were (mostly) taught respect, and the very serious nature of firearms, and (almost) never had any sort of incident. Well, nobody got shot.

But that was the 1970s, a time when my sister's car seat was a device to keep her still and out of Mom's hair. As a safety device, it was appalling, two hooks over the back seat,  maybe a lap belt fastened across it? There's no doubt it would have become a projectile in an accident. We did safety half-assed in the 70s, nobody denies that. And today, we might have a tendency to be overprotective. But in a world where child safety and "what about the children" is paramount, how in the world is it legal to market and sell real guns to children?

Barbie's Dream Rifle?

As President Obama has "evolved" on gay marriage, I'm evolving on gun control. I've been moving from sort of against it, to indifferent, to wary, to almost fully in the gun control camp. It's not just tragic and horrific gun deaths that has pushed me over, it is the appalling response and behavior from gun fetishists freaks nuts enthusiasts. When your first response to a mass shooting is, "Gubmint better not be thinking about taking my guns!" there's a problem. When there are instantaneous, ridiculous conspiracy theories after each new massacre, the problem is getting out of hand. The strange quasi-religious, fetishistic, near addiction some people have to guns is quite off-putting, even to a person who was raised around them. The fanatical, rabid defense of the 2nd amendment over all the rest of the Constitution is more than odd, it's hypocritical. And extending all of that into guns marketed to 5-year-olds is fucking insane.

[Excerpt]

Guns for Kids Marketing Debate Ignited by Latest Child Death

The tragic shooting death of a 2-year-old girl by her 5-year-old brother this week was compounded by the fact -- baffling to many who don't use guns -- that the .22 rifle the boy used has been given to him as a present. . .

Read more (with annoying, autoplaying video) at: ABC News

And I've saved the most appalling image from Crickett's website, via Mother Jones, for last.

Should Teachers Really Have Guns?

Image from source, ThinkProgress

It's so automatic now, that it's become a morbid joke: if there is a mass shooting--regardless of the circumstances--argument will be made that if only the victims/bystanders were armed, the shooter would have been stopped. The answer to gun violence is allegedly more guns, which seems like the old cold war "mutually assured destruction" to me, but what do I know?

So, it's not surprising that when there was a school shooting, many gun rights supporters responded by saying that teachers should be armed. Sounds kind of good on the surface, if you don't think about it much. I mean, you're adding a rather hefty job requirement onto teachers, aren't you? Not only are you asking them to be willing to carry a gun, but presumably to be trained in the art of using it. In a time where the same side of the political aisle are preaching austerity, and slashing government jobs (such as teachers), they want to also enlist those remaining teachers on the payroll to also be armed security?

But let's take a different tangent here. Think back to your school days. Think about the teachers you liked best, the ones with quirky eccentricities, the ones who seemed a bit "off," and the ones you downright hated. I don't know about you, but I had all sorts of teachers who I wouldn't trust with a firearm. Flighty airheads, short-tempered coaches, paranoid task-masters, alcoholic misfits. . .and those are just the bad examples. I also had wonderful teachers, from frail older ladies to wispy delicate beauties to kindly middle-aged bookish gentlemen. With rare exceptions, most of my teachers would have made horrifying choices to be playing Dirty Harry or John McClane through the school halls.

[Excerpt]

South Dakota Now Permits Teachers To Carry Guns In Classroom

On Friday, South Dakota become the first state to enact legislation, in the aftermath of the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, explicitly authorizing teachers and staff in K-12 schools to carry firearms. The measure “leaves it up to school districts to decide whether to allow armed teachers” and requires those who wish to carry guns to “undergo training similar to what law enforcement officers receive. . .”

Read more at: Think Progress

CPAC? More Like L-PAC (The "L" is for Loser!)

This is just some of them. Laugh or cry?

They say it only happens once per year. But it seems more often, doesn't it?


The stars of the annual CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) shindig are always an eye-roller for most liberals, and this year is no exception. Except that one of the previous speakers--Ann Coulter--predicted the doom of the Republican ticket if Mitt Romney was selected, and she was right. And the keynote is going to be given by said Romney. Throw in Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan and Sarah Palin, and you've got Loser-PAC. And that's not even mentioning the State of the Union also-rans Rand Paul and Marco Rubio. Stir in a little infighting this year, and it should all be quite entertaining.

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Poll: Voters Less Likely to Vote for Pro-NRA Candidates

Pepe Le Wayne LaPierre, from Talking Points Memo

What'd I tell you about the National Rifle Association turning "the middle" against them?

[Excerpt]

Poll: Plurality Of Voters Less Likely To Support An NRA-Endorsed Candidate
The National Rifle Association has limited sway over the American electorate, according to a survey released Tuesday from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling. . .

Read more at: Talking Points Memo

NRA: AR-15s are the "Musket of Today"

G'head, play it, then continue reading.



That's my reaction to the continuing idiocy that issues forth from the National Rifle Association. I tell ya, they're their own worst enemies over there at the NRA. Take me, for example. I was Switzerland, baby. I grew up around guns, was raised to respect them, and had no real issues with gun collectors and hunters and "sportsmen" who like ta shoot up road signs and whatnot. But you guys are blowing it. That infamous "middle" that all of politics covets? They're sliding into the "gun control" side, and away from the "gun nuts" "gun fetishists" "gun fellators" "gun rights" advocates. And it's shit like this that's doing it.

Dumbass. Image from Raw Story.

[Excerpt]

NRA President David Keene says AR-15s are ‘the musket of today’

The president of the National Rifle Association (NRA) says that the Second Amendment was designed to protect the right to own muskets and the AR-15 military-style assault rifle — like the one used to slaughter 20 children in Newtown — is just “the musket of today. . .”

Read more at: Raw Story