Mass shooters and child-killers are celebrating. Meanwhile Republican politicians vow to protect us and our kids from — wait for it — librarians and history teachers
Relatives of mine celebrate 'Sunday, Gunday.' Young men, most in their mid-20's go out to their 'back 40' and shoot AR-15's (that they have souped up), semi-automatic handguns, rifles, etc. at tin cans on fence posts (really!). These boys drink alcohol (beers and shots) and shoot, goof around with loaded guns in their hands. they also hunt; nothing like shooting Bambi's head off to give you that rush. They are addicted; makes them feel empowered. Shooting a semi-automatic gun causes the same dopamine rush as drinking/drugs/sex/porn, you name it. One gal I saw interviewed (nice young woman in her 20's) stated that when she shoots her AR-15, she just 'feels better, feels safer.' Safe from what!? Shooters are created by repeated 'target practice' like Sunday Gunday, violent, first-person shooter virtual reality video gaming, often interlaced with downloads of violent porn, child pornography... you name it. What created Adam Lanza the Sandy Hook shooter? Violent video gaming, shooting addiction, child porn addict .... Adam Lanza was in a psychotic break and killed his worst enemy; those children. One thing the CDC says correctly is, gun violence is a national health emergency; mental health emergency, too.
As for the politicians? Steve Scalise takes an AR-15 round to the gut, ends up with a colostomy (temporary? not sure), almost dies and still supports 'guns everywhere' policies. What is that all about?
I got into an exchange of public emails with a neighbor who believes everyone should have all the guns they want. Mentioning the licensing/registration/insurance steps you suggested made him furious, with an angry reply that “guns aren’t cars and don’t kill people like they do.” I suppose that technically true, but…. And then I brought out the data on gun violence, particularly child deaths, using as references both federal statistics and a careful article from the British medical journal The Lancet. His reply was that I faked those sites! Meanwhile a good and very conservative friend explained to me that the reason why during World War 2 Japan didn’t invade California was because of all the civilians with guns waiting for them.
The point of all this is that you are right about pressuring Congress. When such irrational people dominate the stage, so-called “leaders” will do nothing. Guns held by irresponsible people (there are legitimate sport users) are a part of many other social issues. They relate to those who think they are “manly” and “free” by “opposing the government”. While I don’t like a lot of things Washington does either, too many in that group seem to imagine that somehow they and a few others can fight the U.S. army with their firearms and turn the country into their image of what a “great” America is. But making America a place largely free of the gun plague will involve many things, not least more access to mental health facilities and social safety nets for those on the edge of violence. Certainly the current situation is ridiculous.
When substitute teaching I occasionally have to participate in school lock down drills against an imaginary armed shooter. The best I can do is to tell the kids that my generation survived ducking under our desks to avoid atomic bombs. So something like this shouldn’t drive them crazy either. But what a pathetic picture of America this paints.
I feel your grief at doing these drills with your children in school. One difference from the A-bomb drills is, the nuclear threat, scary as it was, was a looming possibility that, except for Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of WWII, had no subsequent events that could be pointed to, whereas there are mass school shootings every couple of months, highly publicized in the media. No child can be confident that it won't happen in their school as randomly as in all the others where it's happened. This is a generational trauma of a magnitude we cannot yet fathom.
I agree with your conclusion, but don't cast shade on the depth of trauma of threats you are valuing in hindsight. The West Coast implemented strict blackouts after Pearl Harbor: a child reprimanded for cracking a window shade is scared just as much as if you assessed the procedure as nonsense. My mother quit a dearly treasured job teaching in Shasta Co., CA to go home to her family in San Francisco for when; not if, but when the Japanese came. A dear friend with a boxful of WWII underwater demolitions medals was assigned early on to the massive submarine nets under the Golden Gate. He used to joke, they drilled us to perfection on puttin' 'em out, but they never told us what to do if we caught one! Now the existential question is, what shall we do? This horror stalks us from next door.
I went through the A-Bomb drills throughout my grade school life, and I know how scary they were. World War II was over by then, of course, but now it was the Cold War and the mass hysteria that the commies were going to overrun us. I clearly recall Khruschev pounding his shoe on the table at the UN, and declaring -so it was reported - "We will bury you." (Apparently that was a bad translation, but it worked to stoke the fires here in America). I don't mean to dismiss the earlier generational traumas in any way. My point is, I rarely went to school looking at the sky for a Russian A-bomb-loaded warplane, and felt reasonably sure I'd make it back home at the end of the day. Today's children can have no such confidence, because there are soulless individuals by the thousands, or perhaps even millions, roaming the land with assault weapons and enough of them are going into schools all over the country, shooting up classrooms and sending kids home in body bags, that our children are under real threat that it could happen to them at any time on any day. And like the A-bomb drills, the precautions taught in these active shooter drills would be next to useless in a real situation.
Dear Rene, please see my response to: never mind, here it is: don't cast shade on the depth of trauma of threats you are valuing in hindsight. The West Coast implemented strict blackouts after Pearl Harbor: a child reprimanded for cracking a window shade is scared just as much as if you assessed the procedure as nonsense. My mother quit a dearly treasured job teaching in Shasta Co., CA to go home to her family in San Francisco for when; not if, but when the Japanese came. A dear friend with a boxful of WWII underwater demolitions medals was assigned early on to the massive submarine nets under the Golden Gate. He used to joke, they drilled us to perfection on puttin' 'em out, but they never told us what to do if we caught one! Now the existential question is, what shall we do? This horror stalks us from next door. (and, dear Rene, none of these were stupid people.)
Each forth turning generation fought their war: the Revolutionary war, the Civil War, World War II, and now GenZs have the American Gun War. When are we going to recognize we are in the middle of an escalating war in this nation? Our only hope is for GenZs to have the will, tenacity and courage to stop this war! I want to see them bring back hope, save lives, and help everyone live again without constant fear of being gunned down. We must help them get elected to all legislative and judicial branches so they destroy this war.
Who/what are the "GenZ's" you have hopes of? Are they "tuned in" to Candy Crush, or to their own lives at risk from the guy next door? There is so much alternative reality media, not to mention, hello, disinformation about "reality," etc. how can "connected" kids discern anything about anything?
Yeah, you said it; it's out of control. So, what's the plan? Noone seems to have a plan on how to bring it back under control. Or maybe that is the plan, same as why Hilary Clinton was never President -- is it better for the billionaires if your society is a bit bonkers?
Answer: yes, because bonkers with a sale tag don't make regulations. Laissez faire, baby! But. You bring up Hillary. I just can't figure I'm going to be popular, here, but beyond "baggage," the darlin' girl had no "charm," that survived the camera's cold eye, anyhow. I grew up in a children's theatre company, in a theatre town, even major Opera, and I had my hair blown back in the balcony (not literally) by Jose Ferrer as Don Quijote, and I changed the channel yesterday so as to not listen to Kamala Harris, and this worries me terribly. There is a point at which all the resume in the world means zilch, if the camera reads you as a dud. I am losing sleep.
The problem is not just the NRA and gun manufacturers. The problem lies with the right wingers, who have been pushing for a neo serfdom, fascist society since this country's inception.
Recall that Alexander Hamilton favored a unitary executive for life, much like a King, and that Washington was offered kingship.
There is and always will be people of a patriarchal mentality, popularized in the 60's as Father Knows Best, Mayberry , I love Lucy and Leave it to Beaver.
There are two sides to patriachalism. The, mostly men, who perceive that they are the beneficiaries and have unfettered rule over their little kingdom, the family.Under Augustus Caesar it was called the Law of Pater Familia, where the husband and father had life and death control over wife and children.
And the camp followers, the hanger ons,mostly women, who perceive, until they are cast aside, that their bread is better buttered by supporting the patriarchy.
The Patriarchs perceive as a threat, government, because it is only a government that can restrain them from full exercise of the power that they feel is theirs. Unless, of course, that government is a mirror image of them, authoritarian in full control, for as in Hitlers Germany, Mussolini's Italy and Franco's Spain, the masses of men knew that the government understood them and their needs, and thus vice versa.
For those that believe that Hitler outlawed guns. Think again, He only outlawed guns in the hands of Jews, as for the rest, he relaxed the more stringent Weimar Republic gun laws
It is more than the NRA and gun manufacturers it is the psychosexual need of insecure men who question their own manhood, and who are unable function sexually, unless they are dominant and in control. (Incels don't stand a chance, ever) The jokes and characteristics about guns being penile substitutes and phallic symbols is quite accurate.
I'm wondering how Lauren Bobert and Marjorie Taylor Greene fit into that argument. Would they agree with it? Based on your analysis, do their love of guns and public bearing of firearms count as penis envy? While the Pater Familia laws you cite have definitely reverberated loudly throughout Western history - based on our tragic and undying obsession with maintaining the Roman Empire as a model for civilization - which is also why the fascist ideal never seems to die - the pathology of our age is about more than patriarchy, in my opinion.
You know, it's the darndest thing, but your note makes me, ordinarily the biggest feminist, want to stand up for men. Men are human. They can be rational and fair and just. They can care about the women close to them. I tend to be heavily inclined to the nature side of the "nature vs nurture" argument; yet I have observed moms in laundromats, time and again, ignoring their little boys carroming off the walls while their sisters helped Mom do the laundry and Mom soliloquied about how dad threw his stuff on the floor....A huge burden of social conditioning doesn't mean the boy can't make sense of things. For what it's worth....
"Freedom seeds???" Seriously? This is pathological. Gun love is a form of insanity. Licensing, registering and insuring guns are all totally reasonable. Of course, just as many people are out driving without insurance or a license, there will be people carrying uninsured and unlicensed firearms as well, so there have to be serious penalties, including meaningful jail time, for doing so. Perhaps something like the sex offenders list for people convicted. Christ said, "Those who live by the sword (firearms) will die by the sword (firearms). I don't want to wish death on anybody, but when I see Massie and his family in that smug, sociopathic Christmas photo, I find myself thinking that they need to experience a mindless gun-related tragedy in their lives to slap them upside the head and maybe awaken their hearts.
I so hear your caring. These people are pandering to a fantasy, that they are safer because they are armed against: .....fill in the blank. Remember that there are a million households across the country who lost loved ones from Covid, and still think it's a "liberal" lie. Apparently millions of parents who won't protect their children from measles or polio, for heaven's sake. I am not sure the human race has quite gone through this mania before...
Before we engage in any more gun-related debates, I think it is essential that we share a common understanding of the original purpose of the ambiguous and undiagrammable sentence which is the 2nd Amendment.
If you’ve read Thom’s book The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment, you know what I mean, and if you haven’t read it, you should, if only because he does such a nice job of telling the story of how the purpose of the 2nd Amendment has (d)evolved since it was ratified. At the risk of oversimplifying, the original purpose was to arm militiamen because there was no standing army. That mutated into arming slave patrols (and calling them militias) to benefit the oligarchs of slavery. Moreover, the 2nd Amendment empowered the oligarchs of real estate and money to take the land and destroy the lives of millions of indigenous peoples by hiring men who would be willing to shoot other humans. If you are a Constitutional originalist like Scalia, this was a very inconvenient truth. Today if you ask any of the GOP grifters in our government, it is unlikely that they would acknowledge the original purpose of the 2nd Amendment much less have read Thom’s book.
Regardless, until we agree on what the 2nd Amendment was intended to do for our citizens we will continue to be at cross purposes and the gun oligarchs will continue to win.
There are actually many parts of the Constitution that need revision and clarification. The entire manner of written expression in the eighteenth century, and the foreseeable circumstances of that time, are inadequate for much of what we are facing today. Of course, in today's political climate, a new Constitutional Convention would be extremely dangerous, but for example, the parameters of the Second Amendment need to be clarified and made far less ambiguous.
Yeah, in my County, that's the subject to not dare to bring up: that Australia succeeded! Even our own assault weapons ban did measurable good. Things have evolved, though. These latest mass shooters have legal guns, and now the "ghost gun" supply means even getting rid of the nonsensical "gun show" exemption might not have much impact. It seems hopeless.
You can account for the likes of Boebert and MJT, the same way you account for the likes of Silk and Diamond, Candace Owens, Clarence Thomas, Tim Scott, Herschel Walker et al.
They have made a rational decision that there lot is better off when thrown into the (in their estimation) the dominant paradigm.
It might even be penis envy as you suggested. The right is especially adept at projection, and IIRC Hannah Ahrendt said, in effect, that you can tell what is coming at you, by what they complain of as being proposed or foisted on them by the left. When they accuse us of persecuting them, they are in fact preparing to persecute the left. Etc.
There is a tendency for people to want to be on the winning side, and they switch sides in the blink of an eye. Apparently the perception today is that the theocratic fascists are winning.
Bear in mind that Boebert is or was, allegedly a prostitute, and adulteress, but she is a darling of the white nationalist Christian right who overlook her transgressions, the same way they are ignoring George Santos lies and career as a drag queen,the same way they ignored Giuliani's penchant for cross dressing, while simultaneous attacking drag queens.
I am a man, Thom Hartmann is a man, men are progressives. You are correct, but what I wrote stands true for those men, not all men.
Unfortunately writing makes it seem like I said all men, I didn't, just those men on the right, the gun nuts, the patriarchs the incels, the failed men. Not all men as you seem to have taken my comment to mean.
.... Oh, and it just kept getting worse Sunday and Monday.
How did we raise a nation with this many dysfunctional men and boys? Thankfully there are guys like Brandon Tsay, officers, and others who have stepped up in these situations.
The stats don't lie, Republicans do, and the ones that don't are in denial. They already have lost the sensible law argument on this issue. Now we need to make sure they lose at the polls so we can stop some of the bleeding.
I suspect this has been planned since the end of the Vietnam war. When Nixon normalized relations with China. Shipping 50 million jobs to them would turn America into a third world nation. Throw in Reagan and his trickle down theory, free trade, and legalizing illegal immigrants for cheap labor to bust the unions. The GOP has been obstructing and destroying democracy ever since. They have been amassing an army of sadists. The only way the rational thinkers will be able to defeat them is if the US military is on their side. Garland and Biden have not taken the insurrection seriously and may possibly hand over the military to a GOP Commander in Chief. I hope the Dems run another candidate.
Once again , I am amazed by the acceptance of many people regarding heavy concentrations of guns and killings in our country.
Is it really ok with them ? The number one cause of death in children is gun violence. Thats ok?
Sorry but what we have here is self centered nostalgia in many cases for gun owning and a “ whatever happens I’m not giving up my guns”. I think this might be the time to bring up the old adage” Nothing changes if nothing changes”. Need weapons for hunting ...ok do you need six weapons including assault weapons for chasing down a turkey.?
I think not .
We need to repetitively contact our senators and representatives letting them know clearly where we stand on the issues of more guns than people in our country.
People defending the right to bear arms ( multiple arms including assault weapons) are not thinking in terms of the greater good .
They are thinking in terms of “I, I and I want “.
Well then the deaths of children , (God forbid their own . ) seem to matter less than what they want to possess.
Why aren’t firearms subject to mandatory registration and licensing ?
It seems logical , but do we really need our assault weapons and five other guns. Sorry , You do not.
And then when I got online Mon. 23, news headlines are two new shootings, one with 7 victims in Half Moon Bay, not far south of San Francisco. Dancers in Monterey Park; nursery workers in two different plant nurseries up here. Teacher of a six-year-old, for heaven's sake. Weird thing is, sometimes a right seems to need a Constitutional Amendment, but does the 2d A. really need amendment? "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." What are you going to "amend?" Antonin Scalia is, by any reasonable definition, burning in hell.
Relatives of mine celebrate 'Sunday, Gunday.' Young men, most in their mid-20's go out to their 'back 40' and shoot AR-15's (that they have souped up), semi-automatic handguns, rifles, etc. at tin cans on fence posts (really!). These boys drink alcohol (beers and shots) and shoot, goof around with loaded guns in their hands. they also hunt; nothing like shooting Bambi's head off to give you that rush. They are addicted; makes them feel empowered. Shooting a semi-automatic gun causes the same dopamine rush as drinking/drugs/sex/porn, you name it. One gal I saw interviewed (nice young woman in her 20's) stated that when she shoots her AR-15, she just 'feels better, feels safer.' Safe from what!? Shooters are created by repeated 'target practice' like Sunday Gunday, violent, first-person shooter virtual reality video gaming, often interlaced with downloads of violent porn, child pornography... you name it. What created Adam Lanza the Sandy Hook shooter? Violent video gaming, shooting addiction, child porn addict .... Adam Lanza was in a psychotic break and killed his worst enemy; those children. One thing the CDC says correctly is, gun violence is a national health emergency; mental health emergency, too.
As for the politicians? Steve Scalise takes an AR-15 round to the gut, ends up with a colostomy (temporary? not sure), almost dies and still supports 'guns everywhere' policies. What is that all about?
I got into an exchange of public emails with a neighbor who believes everyone should have all the guns they want. Mentioning the licensing/registration/insurance steps you suggested made him furious, with an angry reply that “guns aren’t cars and don’t kill people like they do.” I suppose that technically true, but…. And then I brought out the data on gun violence, particularly child deaths, using as references both federal statistics and a careful article from the British medical journal The Lancet. His reply was that I faked those sites! Meanwhile a good and very conservative friend explained to me that the reason why during World War 2 Japan didn’t invade California was because of all the civilians with guns waiting for them.
The point of all this is that you are right about pressuring Congress. When such irrational people dominate the stage, so-called “leaders” will do nothing. Guns held by irresponsible people (there are legitimate sport users) are a part of many other social issues. They relate to those who think they are “manly” and “free” by “opposing the government”. While I don’t like a lot of things Washington does either, too many in that group seem to imagine that somehow they and a few others can fight the U.S. army with their firearms and turn the country into their image of what a “great” America is. But making America a place largely free of the gun plague will involve many things, not least more access to mental health facilities and social safety nets for those on the edge of violence. Certainly the current situation is ridiculous.
When substitute teaching I occasionally have to participate in school lock down drills against an imaginary armed shooter. The best I can do is to tell the kids that my generation survived ducking under our desks to avoid atomic bombs. So something like this shouldn’t drive them crazy either. But what a pathetic picture of America this paints.
I feel your grief at doing these drills with your children in school. One difference from the A-bomb drills is, the nuclear threat, scary as it was, was a looming possibility that, except for Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of WWII, had no subsequent events that could be pointed to, whereas there are mass school shootings every couple of months, highly publicized in the media. No child can be confident that it won't happen in their school as randomly as in all the others where it's happened. This is a generational trauma of a magnitude we cannot yet fathom.
I agree with your conclusion, but don't cast shade on the depth of trauma of threats you are valuing in hindsight. The West Coast implemented strict blackouts after Pearl Harbor: a child reprimanded for cracking a window shade is scared just as much as if you assessed the procedure as nonsense. My mother quit a dearly treasured job teaching in Shasta Co., CA to go home to her family in San Francisco for when; not if, but when the Japanese came. A dear friend with a boxful of WWII underwater demolitions medals was assigned early on to the massive submarine nets under the Golden Gate. He used to joke, they drilled us to perfection on puttin' 'em out, but they never told us what to do if we caught one! Now the existential question is, what shall we do? This horror stalks us from next door.
I went through the A-Bomb drills throughout my grade school life, and I know how scary they were. World War II was over by then, of course, but now it was the Cold War and the mass hysteria that the commies were going to overrun us. I clearly recall Khruschev pounding his shoe on the table at the UN, and declaring -so it was reported - "We will bury you." (Apparently that was a bad translation, but it worked to stoke the fires here in America). I don't mean to dismiss the earlier generational traumas in any way. My point is, I rarely went to school looking at the sky for a Russian A-bomb-loaded warplane, and felt reasonably sure I'd make it back home at the end of the day. Today's children can have no such confidence, because there are soulless individuals by the thousands, or perhaps even millions, roaming the land with assault weapons and enough of them are going into schools all over the country, shooting up classrooms and sending kids home in body bags, that our children are under real threat that it could happen to them at any time on any day. And like the A-bomb drills, the precautions taught in these active shooter drills would be next to useless in a real situation.
Dear Rene, please see my response to: never mind, here it is: don't cast shade on the depth of trauma of threats you are valuing in hindsight. The West Coast implemented strict blackouts after Pearl Harbor: a child reprimanded for cracking a window shade is scared just as much as if you assessed the procedure as nonsense. My mother quit a dearly treasured job teaching in Shasta Co., CA to go home to her family in San Francisco for when; not if, but when the Japanese came. A dear friend with a boxful of WWII underwater demolitions medals was assigned early on to the massive submarine nets under the Golden Gate. He used to joke, they drilled us to perfection on puttin' 'em out, but they never told us what to do if we caught one! Now the existential question is, what shall we do? This horror stalks us from next door. (and, dear Rene, none of these were stupid people.)
Each forth turning generation fought their war: the Revolutionary war, the Civil War, World War II, and now GenZs have the American Gun War. When are we going to recognize we are in the middle of an escalating war in this nation? Our only hope is for GenZs to have the will, tenacity and courage to stop this war! I want to see them bring back hope, save lives, and help everyone live again without constant fear of being gunned down. We must help them get elected to all legislative and judicial branches so they destroy this war.
Who/what are the "GenZ's" you have hopes of? Are they "tuned in" to Candy Crush, or to their own lives at risk from the guy next door? There is so much alternative reality media, not to mention, hello, disinformation about "reality," etc. how can "connected" kids discern anything about anything?
I work at a University If you want to meet connected young people go speak to one of the students who have worked hard to get there
Yeah, you said it; it's out of control. So, what's the plan? Noone seems to have a plan on how to bring it back under control. Or maybe that is the plan, same as why Hilary Clinton was never President -- is it better for the billionaires if your society is a bit bonkers?
Answer: yes, because bonkers with a sale tag don't make regulations. Laissez faire, baby! But. You bring up Hillary. I just can't figure I'm going to be popular, here, but beyond "baggage," the darlin' girl had no "charm," that survived the camera's cold eye, anyhow. I grew up in a children's theatre company, in a theatre town, even major Opera, and I had my hair blown back in the balcony (not literally) by Jose Ferrer as Don Quijote, and I changed the channel yesterday so as to not listen to Kamala Harris, and this worries me terribly. There is a point at which all the resume in the world means zilch, if the camera reads you as a dud. I am losing sleep.
The problem is not just the NRA and gun manufacturers. The problem lies with the right wingers, who have been pushing for a neo serfdom, fascist society since this country's inception.
Recall that Alexander Hamilton favored a unitary executive for life, much like a King, and that Washington was offered kingship.
There is and always will be people of a patriarchal mentality, popularized in the 60's as Father Knows Best, Mayberry , I love Lucy and Leave it to Beaver.
There are two sides to patriachalism. The, mostly men, who perceive that they are the beneficiaries and have unfettered rule over their little kingdom, the family.Under Augustus Caesar it was called the Law of Pater Familia, where the husband and father had life and death control over wife and children.
And the camp followers, the hanger ons,mostly women, who perceive, until they are cast aside, that their bread is better buttered by supporting the patriarchy.
The Patriarchs perceive as a threat, government, because it is only a government that can restrain them from full exercise of the power that they feel is theirs. Unless, of course, that government is a mirror image of them, authoritarian in full control, for as in Hitlers Germany, Mussolini's Italy and Franco's Spain, the masses of men knew that the government understood them and their needs, and thus vice versa.
For those that believe that Hitler outlawed guns. Think again, He only outlawed guns in the hands of Jews, as for the rest, he relaxed the more stringent Weimar Republic gun laws
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/1327/
It is more than the NRA and gun manufacturers it is the psychosexual need of insecure men who question their own manhood, and who are unable function sexually, unless they are dominant and in control. (Incels don't stand a chance, ever) The jokes and characteristics about guns being penile substitutes and phallic symbols is quite accurate.
I'm wondering how Lauren Bobert and Marjorie Taylor Greene fit into that argument. Would they agree with it? Based on your analysis, do their love of guns and public bearing of firearms count as penis envy? While the Pater Familia laws you cite have definitely reverberated loudly throughout Western history - based on our tragic and undying obsession with maintaining the Roman Empire as a model for civilization - which is also why the fascist ideal never seems to die - the pathology of our age is about more than patriarchy, in my opinion.
You know, it's the darndest thing, but your note makes me, ordinarily the biggest feminist, want to stand up for men. Men are human. They can be rational and fair and just. They can care about the women close to them. I tend to be heavily inclined to the nature side of the "nature vs nurture" argument; yet I have observed moms in laundromats, time and again, ignoring their little boys carroming off the walls while their sisters helped Mom do the laundry and Mom soliloquied about how dad threw his stuff on the floor....A huge burden of social conditioning doesn't mean the boy can't make sense of things. For what it's worth....
"Freedom seeds???" Seriously? This is pathological. Gun love is a form of insanity. Licensing, registering and insuring guns are all totally reasonable. Of course, just as many people are out driving without insurance or a license, there will be people carrying uninsured and unlicensed firearms as well, so there have to be serious penalties, including meaningful jail time, for doing so. Perhaps something like the sex offenders list for people convicted. Christ said, "Those who live by the sword (firearms) will die by the sword (firearms). I don't want to wish death on anybody, but when I see Massie and his family in that smug, sociopathic Christmas photo, I find myself thinking that they need to experience a mindless gun-related tragedy in their lives to slap them upside the head and maybe awaken their hearts.
I so hear your caring. These people are pandering to a fantasy, that they are safer because they are armed against: .....fill in the blank. Remember that there are a million households across the country who lost loved ones from Covid, and still think it's a "liberal" lie. Apparently millions of parents who won't protect their children from measles or polio, for heaven's sake. I am not sure the human race has quite gone through this mania before...
Before we engage in any more gun-related debates, I think it is essential that we share a common understanding of the original purpose of the ambiguous and undiagrammable sentence which is the 2nd Amendment.
If you’ve read Thom’s book The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment, you know what I mean, and if you haven’t read it, you should, if only because he does such a nice job of telling the story of how the purpose of the 2nd Amendment has (d)evolved since it was ratified. At the risk of oversimplifying, the original purpose was to arm militiamen because there was no standing army. That mutated into arming slave patrols (and calling them militias) to benefit the oligarchs of slavery. Moreover, the 2nd Amendment empowered the oligarchs of real estate and money to take the land and destroy the lives of millions of indigenous peoples by hiring men who would be willing to shoot other humans. If you are a Constitutional originalist like Scalia, this was a very inconvenient truth. Today if you ask any of the GOP grifters in our government, it is unlikely that they would acknowledge the original purpose of the 2nd Amendment much less have read Thom’s book.
Regardless, until we agree on what the 2nd Amendment was intended to do for our citizens we will continue to be at cross purposes and the gun oligarchs will continue to win.
There are actually many parts of the Constitution that need revision and clarification. The entire manner of written expression in the eighteenth century, and the foreseeable circumstances of that time, are inadequate for much of what we are facing today. Of course, in today's political climate, a new Constitutional Convention would be extremely dangerous, but for example, the parameters of the Second Amendment need to be clarified and made far less ambiguous.
Check out this map of the mass shootings in 2023, the senators holding up the bill to ban assault weapons and how to call them with one click. https://thedemlabs.org/2023/01/23/mass-shootings-map-ban-assault-weapons-senators/
Very simple solution. Call Australia. They'll tell us how they did it.
Yeah, in my County, that's the subject to not dare to bring up: that Australia succeeded! Even our own assault weapons ban did measurable good. Things have evolved, though. These latest mass shooters have legal guns, and now the "ghost gun" supply means even getting rid of the nonsensical "gun show" exemption might not have much impact. It seems hopeless.
You can account for the likes of Boebert and MJT, the same way you account for the likes of Silk and Diamond, Candace Owens, Clarence Thomas, Tim Scott, Herschel Walker et al.
They have made a rational decision that there lot is better off when thrown into the (in their estimation) the dominant paradigm.
It might even be penis envy as you suggested. The right is especially adept at projection, and IIRC Hannah Ahrendt said, in effect, that you can tell what is coming at you, by what they complain of as being proposed or foisted on them by the left. When they accuse us of persecuting them, they are in fact preparing to persecute the left. Etc.
There is a tendency for people to want to be on the winning side, and they switch sides in the blink of an eye. Apparently the perception today is that the theocratic fascists are winning.
Bear in mind that Boebert is or was, allegedly a prostitute, and adulteress, but she is a darling of the white nationalist Christian right who overlook her transgressions, the same way they are ignoring George Santos lies and career as a drag queen,the same way they ignored Giuliani's penchant for cross dressing, while simultaneous attacking drag queens.
There is a word for these people... Quislings.
I am a man, Thom Hartmann is a man, men are progressives. You are correct, but what I wrote stands true for those men, not all men.
Unfortunately writing makes it seem like I said all men, I didn't, just those men on the right, the gun nuts, the patriarchs the incels, the failed men. Not all men as you seem to have taken my comment to mean.
.... Oh, and it just kept getting worse Sunday and Monday.
How did we raise a nation with this many dysfunctional men and boys? Thankfully there are guys like Brandon Tsay, officers, and others who have stepped up in these situations.
The stats don't lie, Republicans do, and the ones that don't are in denial. They already have lost the sensible law argument on this issue. Now we need to make sure they lose at the polls so we can stop some of the bleeding.
I suspect this has been planned since the end of the Vietnam war. When Nixon normalized relations with China. Shipping 50 million jobs to them would turn America into a third world nation. Throw in Reagan and his trickle down theory, free trade, and legalizing illegal immigrants for cheap labor to bust the unions. The GOP has been obstructing and destroying democracy ever since. They have been amassing an army of sadists. The only way the rational thinkers will be able to defeat them is if the US military is on their side. Garland and Biden have not taken the insurrection seriously and may possibly hand over the military to a GOP Commander in Chief. I hope the Dems run another candidate.
I disagree that Biden and Garland "have not taken the insurrection seriously." I dearly hope the Dems do NOT run Kamala Harris.
If Biden and Garland have not taken the insurrection seriously then they are in on it. I also hope the Dems don't run Kamala Harris.
Once again , I am amazed by the acceptance of many people regarding heavy concentrations of guns and killings in our country.
Is it really ok with them ? The number one cause of death in children is gun violence. Thats ok?
Sorry but what we have here is self centered nostalgia in many cases for gun owning and a “ whatever happens I’m not giving up my guns”. I think this might be the time to bring up the old adage” Nothing changes if nothing changes”. Need weapons for hunting ...ok do you need six weapons including assault weapons for chasing down a turkey.?
I think not .
We need to repetitively contact our senators and representatives letting them know clearly where we stand on the issues of more guns than people in our country.
People defending the right to bear arms ( multiple arms including assault weapons) are not thinking in terms of the greater good .
They are thinking in terms of “I, I and I want “.
Well then the deaths of children , (God forbid their own . ) seem to matter less than what they want to possess.
Why aren’t firearms subject to mandatory registration and licensing ?
It seems logical , but do we really need our assault weapons and five other guns. Sorry , You do not.
And then when I got online Mon. 23, news headlines are two new shootings, one with 7 victims in Half Moon Bay, not far south of San Francisco. Dancers in Monterey Park; nursery workers in two different plant nurseries up here. Teacher of a six-year-old, for heaven's sake. Weird thing is, sometimes a right seems to need a Constitutional Amendment, but does the 2d A. really need amendment? "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." What are you going to "amend?" Antonin Scalia is, by any reasonable definition, burning in hell.
Would it be possible to sue the supreme court, or certain members of the court? They are directly responsible for this current epidemic of death.