On Planet Earth this morning, my family and I got up, breakfasted on scrambled eggs, toast, coffee and orange juice. Then my husband left for work, and shortly thereafter, I drove my daughter to school and came back home.
At no point during our morning routine were we required to employ an AR-15 to lay withering cover fire to repel the menacing gangs of Latin American drug lords who threatened to accost us as we moved from home to chicken coop, from house to vehicle or from vehicle to school building or workplace. That’s because we don’t live in Wayne LaPierre’s Insane World [warning — link to Bowtied Wingnuttia]:
It has always been sensible for good citizens to own and carry firearms for lawful protection against violent criminals who prey on decent people.
During the second Obama term, however, additional threats are growing. Latin American drug gangs have invaded every city of significant size in the United States. Phoenix is already one of the kidnapping capitals of the world, and though the states on the U.S./Mexico border may be the first places in the nation to suffer from cartel violence, by no means are they the last.
At some point today, I’m going to have to visit the grocery store, and if I somehow emerge from that riotous hellscape of looters and drug-addled violent criminals unscathed, it’s entirely possible that al Qaeda terrorists will murder me in the parking lot to steal my 2001 Beetle or my green bag containing pet food and a baguette:
Hurricanes. Tornadoes. Riots. Terrorists. Gangs. Lone criminals. These are perils we are sure to face—not just maybe. It’s not paranoia to buy a gun. It’s survival. It’s responsible behavior, and it’s time we encourage law-abiding Americans to do just that.
Yes, law-abiding citizens who want to model responsible behavior must purchase additional firearms, because 300 million guns clearly isn’t enough:
We will not surrender. We will not appease. We will buy more guns than ever. We will use them for sport and lawful self-defense more than ever. We will grow the NRA more than ever. And we will be prouder than ever to be freedom-loving NRA patriots. And with your help, we will ensure that the Second Amendment remains America’s First Freedom.
We will Stand And Fight.
Honest to god, if the only danger was that these people would accidentally shoot their own dicks off, this would be positively comedic. But this insane death huckster has a controlling interest in many of our congresscritters. Goddammit, fellow sane people, this needs to change.
[X-posted at Rumproast]
Punchy
Tornados require machine guns? What….to shoot the funnel cloud?
Linda Featheringill
I haven’t been shot at recently either.
To be honest, I’ve never been shot at although I’ve been in the sights of a rifle a couple of times. Interesting sensation, really clears the mind of all the little complaints.
But why do you need to carry a gun to shop for groceries? Or to go to church for God’s sake?
Paranoia will destroy ya. But Ol Wayne might not die alone and that worries me a bit.
Face
Just how many adult diapers does Lil Wayne soil each day?
kay
@Punchy:
He just has to hit all the markets. It’s difficult to make someone who lives in Kansas terrified of a hurricane. He’s a national fear salesman.
Ash Can
Shorter Wayne LaPierre: “Buy more guns, dammit! Those kickbacks I’m getting from the gun and ammo manufacturers ain’t gonna kick themselves back.”
arguingwithsignposts
And here I thought that other amendment that came before it was the first freedom. I guess old Jimmy Madison wasn’t very good with ordinal numbers.
Gozer
@kay: Well…aren’t tornadoes sometimes spun off of tropical storms?
It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
raven
Pat Lang
MikeJ
@Punchy:
Ever see the episode of WKRP where a tornado hits Cincy? Les only has the civil defense plans for a communist invasion and goes on the air to warn about “hordes of godless tornadoes.”
Ash Can
So what’s the over-under on news reports coming out of the next red-state area that gets wrecked by a tornado of someone getting mowed down by machine-gun fire as he’s walking up to a damaged house to see if the neighbor who lives there is OK?
Gozer
I’m going to get a coupla pizze for the missus and I for tonight. I know we live in a sleepy corner of southeast pa near the jersey border, but I’m thinking I need to protect myself on the pizza run. I’m thinking…bazooka? Too much?
mistermix
That thing reads like something that was written in fecal matter using Wayne’s index finger.
LGRooney
@arguingwithsignposts: That’s what I was trying to figure out. Math much?
dmsilev
I must have missed all the news stories about how Brooklyn turned into Somalia for a couple of weeks. Or did LaPierre somehow confuse his game of Fallout 3 with the evening news? It would explain a lot.
arguingwithsignposts
Ok, seriously, where does that idea about “America’s First Freedom” come from, other than Wayne’s fevered head?
Mark S.
Yeah, I thought the first freedom was the freedom to worship Jeebus.
dmsilev
@Gozer:
Not enough
Ash Can
@Gozer:
Yeah, probably. Just take the tank; you should be fine.
ETA: Damn you and your fast fingers, dmsilev!
Gozer
@dmsilev: Games are becoming more photo realistic nowadays. Given that Tonton LaPierre still thinks Splatterhouse is relevant I can see how he’d make that mistake.
Chyron HR
That’s the problem, dear.
Robin G.
@mistermix: No kidding.
You know, while I thoroughly disagree with them, there are in fact SANE people who make arguments against gun control. I imagine them reacting to this the way we react to Kucinich: burying our heads in our hands and moaning “Please, for the love of God, shut your fool mouth before our cause is destroyed forever.”
Of course, it’s their job to shut him up. If the supposedly 70% percent of the NRA who supports more background checks isn’t willing to stage a leadership coup of their own organization, how are we supposed to expect them to “defend our liberties”?
Gozer
@Ash Can: I don’t know. I do have to drive through a…HISPANIC NEIGHBORHOOD to get there. So anything could happen.
Mr. Longform
Here’s the problem I don’t see solving. Let’s say sanity somehow emerges and we stop allowing the sale of assault weapons, clips, require background checks, even (as long as we’re fantasizing) implement really strict control on gun usage. We still have 300 million guns floating around. That’s the real problem. Until we melt down about 295,000,000 of them, I don’t see things getting a lot better. And I’m good with melting, but I don’t think a majority of my fellow citizens would be on board. We are just saturated in the damn things already. That or the suggestion about shooting their own dicks off might work, although 300 million is a lot of gross bits sitting around.
MikeJ
@Gozer:
If you’re picking up ethnic food you never know what sort of people you’ll run into. You could play it safe and eat boiled potatoes.
arguingwithsignposts
@MikeJ: Aren’t boiled potatoes Irish food?
Eric in NNY
Good luck today Betty. Be safe
RSA
@arguingwithsignposts:
Miss Manners has said that when someone proposes they go out for ethnic food, she’ll suggest a French restaurant.
Gozer
@MikeJ: Irish and German “cuisine” is my wife’s domain as the Celt and Teuton of the house. But she does love the foods of my swarthy Southern European peoples so we take our chances.
Barbara
Just a thought experiment: how scary would gangs be if they weren’t able to so reliably buy advanced weaponry? I have yet to hear of a drive-by knifing.
Ash Can
@Gozer: Well, considering that everyone in that Hispanic neighborhood is surely a Messican drug-lord cartel-ista, you’d better be prepared to come home with burritos and enchiladas instead, which you’ll have been forced to purchase at gunpoint.
debit
I’m thinking Betty needs to mount some fricken’ lazers on her chickens. Those eggs must be kept safe from the roving gangs of Latino drug lords.
Svensker
@arguingwithsignposts:
Swedish. If you add white sauce for contrast.
Villago Delenda Est
The NRA is the marketing arm for the merchants of death.
“Freedom” has nothing to do with this. Avarice, though, does.
Brendanyc
it’s worth noting by the way, that, consistent with the nra lying about everything else, it turns out that Phoenix actually has a boringly average kidnapping rate http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/local_news/investigations/feds-phoenix-pd-used-inflated-kidnapping-statistics
also see the fbi crime stats or many other sources.
this is something i’ve had a one-year-long argument about with my nephew who *lives in Phoenix* and was hoodwinked. Humans being true to type, however, it is now a matter of pride for him to keep trying to find scraps of evidence of the mexican drug crime invasion (he hasn’t found any–Px is average or safer in almost every comparison to other sunbelt cities, even those like Atlanta or others far away from the border. cognitive dissonance (and stubborn bigotry) being what it is, though, he can’t bring himself to admit that he may have just plain fallen for a right wing lie.
he’s also born-again, though, so who can tell what goes on in there?
chopper
@Punchy:
if you shoot at the funnel cloud the bullets get caught up in the tornado and whip around and hit criminals. it’s science.
Corner Stone
@Svensker:
Why did I think the potato was from South America?
Cacti
@arguingwithsignposts:
And German.
You know who that makes a boiled potato eater?
japa21
They would need to have dicks to shoot off first. The reason they need guns is that they don’t have the other.
Corner Stone
@Gozer:
Oh no. No, no, no. You live near Jersey fer dog’s sake? You’d risk your life going through Latin drug lords and then Mafia bosses for a slice of pie?
That’s what I call love.
Betty Cracker
@debit: I can just see the hens using the fricken’ lasers to detach banana leaves from the trees. They would love it, but it would eliminate a chief form of entertainment we derive from our chickens, which is watching them hop up and down to reach the leaves. I’ve been meaning to capture this on video and share it with y’all; it’s fricken’ hilarious.
Gozer
@Ash Can: Mostly Central American so, Communism!
Patricia Kayden
“Latin American drug gangs have invaded every city of significant size in the United States.”
Somehow, I always knew that it was the Brown people who were to blame. Wonder why he didn’t include the scary Black people in his brilliant analysis.
Corner Stone
Betty, I feel kind of bad for you. What kind of a life have you been living where you haven’t organized other local parents into cover fire teams? Two clear the zone while the third does the shopping. This is so rudimentary I can’t believe I even have to mention it.
Betty Cracker
@Villago Delenda Est: Word. I think I heard earlier this week that LaPierre is holding a news conference tomorrow. The last one went so well! I’m guessing he’ll be rolling out the new Stand
Shop& FightBuyinitiative.Ash Can
@Mr. Longform: It doesn’t solve the problem. What it does is to begin to solve the problem. And we’re way overdue on getting a start on solving the problem.
Nothing is going to solve the problem overnight. Stopping sales of military-grade equipment to civilians isn’t meant to do that. What does solve the problem is cutting off the source of the most dangerous equipment, then letting attrition take over, while mounting and maintaining a public gun-safety campaign. What will solve the problem is getting this country to a point where people are saying, “Crazy Uncle Cletus died and left us his AR-15s. We don’t want the damned things and we can’t sell them, so our best option is to turn them in where they’ll get melted down.” And the only way we get to that point is to start moving in that direction.
Corner Stone
I can certainly get the part about increasing the use for sport, but I’m having a hard time understanding how to naturally drive up the use for more self-defense. I didn’t know there was a supply and demand metric that could be tweaked for increasing shooting people in your home or parking garage.
gbear
We will use them to shoot first and ask questions later more than ever. We will use them to kill people we fear more than ever.
If I remember my statistics without looking then up, I think there are as many guns as humans in the USA, but only 20% own guns. The desperation in LaPierre’s screed makes me think that the actual number of people who want guns may be on the wane. If we can get the statistics to the point where five incredibly paranoid people each personally owns 20% of the guns in the USA, we might be able to nip this in the bud.
Punchy
Now this is funny.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Barbara: Actually, gangs would be pretty scary even without the weapons. That’s why people gang together. But there’s a reason we as a society have decided that a certain group of people are given an exemption to the usual rule of “thou shalt not commit violence against another person,” and we call them the police.
@Mr. Longform: That’s why the law has to include 3 things:
1. Buybacks of large weapons and magazines.
2. Penalty for the owner of a gun if it is used in a crime.
3. No grandfathering.
azrev
Phoenix is not the capitol of anything except the state of Arizona. The kidnapping charge is a lie/Brewer fantasy along with beheadings in the desert.
JCT
If this is the way I viewed the world I would starting thinking about using a gun on myself. Gives apocalyptic a new meaning. Actually, it reads like someone who has been playing some video game for 24 hours straight and is a little lost regarding reality.
And this is all about selling guns and ammo, nothing more. I’ve often wondered whether the true wing nuts believe everything they say — in this case it truly strains the limits of credulity. Slimebag LaPierre may be an Oscar-worthy actor or truly insane. Wonder which it is.
And this would be funnier if I didn’t know people just like this — they spout this crap all the time. I’ve actually cut back on my range time because standing next to these nuts while they have firearms (and the huge crop of “new” shooters who believe in Wayne’s World of Doom) is nerve-wracking.
Cacti
When he says “Latin American drug gangs,” does anyone else imagine him saying “Booga, booga, booga” afterwards?
S-Curve
Mouthy girlfriends. Moviegoers. First-graders.
Scott S.
If you shoot at the wall cloud enough, the funnel will drop off and become harmless. We must shoot at the sky as often as possible, or else God himself will decide we’re wimps and come steal our stereos.
S-Curve
@Patricia Kayden: That was covered under “riots,” silly.
Cacti
@azrev:
My folks back east have asked me before if I was safe from the drug gangs.
Too much Fox News.
Scott S.
@Scott S.: Or to reiterate, in graphical form.
peach flavored shampoo
@Punchy: I’m guessing that the owner of a a completely demolished home is supposed to want to guard that pile of rubble so badly that he’s willing to dig around in that pile of glass, nails, and snakes to find his gun and then be prepared to shoot and kill anyone that approaches who either wants to check on his health or steal a water-logged box of chocolate Zingers.
Happens all the time.
Ash Can
@Gozer:
Uh-oh. Forget about getting steak in your burritos, then. Proletarian beans and ground beef all the way.
@Betty Cracker:
I wonder if the FSM loves this nation enough to have all the major networks and news organizations report on it, in full detail, and get enough people fired up over the sheer unadulterated crazy that they create a real groundswell of support for effective nationwide gun-safety regulations. Yes, that’s my dream, and I’m sticking to it.
Joel
On a related note.
Barbara
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): They would be scary to me, but they probably wouldn’t be nearly as scary to the police as they are now.
Higgs Boson's Mate
So a handful of constituents get shot dead now and then. They would have died sooner or later anyway, right? On the other hand, the NRA has money and a credible threat to give it to someone else. How would a pol continue to do Great Works in D.C. if someone else was warming his or her seat?
Wake up and smell the gunpowder.
Gozer
@Scott S.: Isn’t that, like, shooting at God!? I didn’t know they hated baby Jeebus so much.
Hoodie
Seems like Wayne is desperate and/or trying to milk assault weapons sales to the end before it becomes a dead business. My guess is that a lot of manufacturers will go under if assault weapons are banned, and with them go Wayne’s gravy train. Although I don’t know the industry well, I bet assault rifles are like the SUVs of the gun industry, high profit margin positional goods whose sales are heavily advertising driven. Like selling fake Hummers to guys that use them to drive to an office job. Completely useless for any other purpose than fantasy fulfillment.
Corner Stone
@Scott S.:
Why would He want our stereos? Don’t you think He already has some kickass surround sound?
Corner Stone
Ok, so I guess FYWP’s delightful trick of the day is to randomly delete some posts and re-order others.
Citizen_X
@Gozer:
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Who said anything about race? Let’s try again:
I do have to drive through a…FILTHY GANG-INFESTED IMMIGRANT SLUM to get there.
Better.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Hoodie:
The designs for assault rifles were done decades ago and the tooling has already paid for itself so the profit margins are likely to be pretty high.
And, don’t forget the ammunition. We used to joke that they could give the guns away and make a shitload of money on the ammunition.
Svensker
@Corner Stone:
It’s just God trying to make you look bad. After he stole your stereo.
ericblair
@Cacti:
I’m Metro DC. I’m apparently going to be gunned down in cold blood as soon as I pop my nose out of the Metro. That is, unless there’s a teabagger rally on the Mall and the multiple millions of protesters are going to overwhelm the entire area and I should just stay home.
Gozer
@Citizen_X: Sorry about that. The dog whistles are more of a primal scream these days with these dudes.
Jay C
@Joel:
What a bummer:
Sound familiar? One really has to wonder, if “mistaken for an intruder” were a separate category of crime, how many incidents would be recorded yearly, and how that number would stack up against other types of crime?
I thought this crap was pretty much a typical American phenomenon: guess South Africa is finally catching up with “progress”…
Scott S.
@Gozer: God is a known threat. All that peace and love and forgiveness and Thou Shalt Not Kill. Goddamn hippie.
@Corner Stone: Listen, if every criminal and drug gang wants to break into your house to steal your precious lamps and colanders, it stands to reason that God wants to take everyone’s stereos, even though he’s already got a good one. IT’S JUST THE INHERENT CRIMINALITY IN HIS BEADY OMNIPOTENT EYES.
Unsympathetic
Solid timing: Today, Wayne Pistorius [Blade Runner in the most recent summer olympics] shot and killed his bikini model girlfriend. He had a documented history of violence (police record) towards women at his place. And, in a sad fact, his victim was one of the South African spokespeople for their campaign to reduce violence towards women.
Guns, now and forever!
jibeaux
There was a bad home invasion a couple of months ago in a neighborhood around here, where a guy and his wife were awakened by a flashlight and gun pointed at them at 3 a.m. in their bed. When they went for the wife, the guy lunged at them unarmed and was shot and paralyzed, she was able to escape. Naturally, this was used as an argument for protecting your home with a gun. I’m not saying I’m the sharpest tool in the shed, but unless this poor dude was sleeping with a loaded gun under his pillow AND had his finger on the trigger AND he has reflexes out of the Matrix, he would have been better served by, say, a home alarm system or a big-ass dog. Isn’t that, I don’t know, kind of obvious?
ericblair
@Jay C:
I heard that this was just somebody’s opinion, and there was a bunch of shit going down in the house beforehand. Also, it would seem that “mistaken for an intruder” may be a convenient way to get rid of someone while skipping the time-consuming bother of trial and incarceration.
And yeah, God is my Copilot, but if he starts eyeing my 10-year-old Sony I’m going to put a cap in His ass, Lord of Hosts or not.
Scott S.
@jibeaux: Don’t be silly. If he’d had a gun, he would’ve been an action hero. Guns cannot fail, they can only be failed.
SixStringFanatic
@Corner Stone: Moar “Stand Yer Ground” laws. Duh.
Trakker
Thank Dog I live in relatively sane Maryland, but even here I have to acknowledge that I have a much greater chance of being shot by some crazed gun owner than by an actual criminal. I think the more threatened the NRA feels the hotter and more dangerous will be their rhetoric and fear mongering. This isn’t going to end well, folks.
Unsympathetic
The actionable problem with guns IMHO is not a comparison to zero deaths — it’s a bizarre contrapositive to even assert “no” deaths as a reasonable outcome, because as in the case of Chicago, no guns actually means no guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens.
Rather, it’s the suicides or rage killings that simply would not happen otherwise. Sure, some people might be depressed enough to slit their own throat, but that’s very tough. Pulling a hair trigger, however, is not a challenge.
Corner Stone
@Trakker:
You couldn’t pay me enough to live in MD now that Ray Lewis has retired. Talk about living in fear.
Corner Stone
@Scott S.:
It’s all become clear to me now. God has taken the form of Senator Jeff Sessions.
Oh, wait. I thought you were screaming “beady incompetent” eyes. My theory still holds water though, if you ask me.
g
@jibeaux:
OK, I’m just going to say – how likely is this scenario? What would make more sense to a criminal, to sneak into an unoccupied home and steal valuables? Or to break into an obviously occupied home and walk into a bedroom with a sleeping couple and shine a flashlight at them? What does “they went for the wife” mean, anyway?
This sounds like a fever dream from a B movie script. Most confrontations between homeowner and burglar happen because the burglar mistakenly thought the home was unoccupied, not because the burglar deliberately intended to confront the homeowner and “go for” his family members.
Yes, I realize home invasion robbery happens in certain ethnic communities – It has occured in the Vietnamese-American community, here in California – but unless I see some statistics, I am not convinced that home invasions are a common threat.
Jay C
@ericblair:
OK: reading through some more news reports, the Pistorius/Steenkamp affair is starting to look a little more complicated than the simple “mistaken-for-an-intruder” scenario as first floated. Not to jump to conclusions (fun as it is, though), I think Oscar’s problem might be more of :
GregB
Does anyone doubt that LaPierre’s final days will mimic those of the character Daniel Day Lewis played in There Will Be Blood, except he’ll shoot someone instead of bludgeoning them with a bowling pin?
shortstop
Even though this is not an open thread, it’s a highly funny thread that has entertained me muchly, so I’ll use it to note that the Illinois senate is likely to pass marriage equality today. Then the harder work of getting it through the house begins. Illinois Juicers, please be ready to lean on your reps.
Robin G.
@Trakker:
I take it you’re not in Baltimore.
Ash Can
@Unsympathetic: No guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens also means no stolen guns in the hands of non-law-abiding citizens, as well as no guns falling into the hands of friends/family members who shouldn’t have them, and no accidental shootings in the homes of those law-abiding citizens. That’s an unattainable ideal in this nation, at least for the foreseeable future, but the “if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns” trope is nothing more than fear-mongering bullshit that assumes no optimal and effective midway point.
Mr Stagger Lee
I do believe Mr. LaPierre watches Gangland a bit much, while surfing the net for the gore sites, that feature beheadings. Ah yess the thought of Tango Blast or La EME going out to Raccoon Creek, Iowa to do some mayhem on Farmer Jones. That might be the next movie starring Bruce Willis.
Hoodie
@g: While this kind of home invasion isn’t common, this particular event wasn’t a fever dream and it looks like the guys that broke in had some really bad intentions. The neighborhood is an historic district that borders some shakier parts of town. The guys who did it are in custody. Kind of a tough event for that neighborhood, it tends to have a pretty progressive population. The homeowner having a gun would probably not made any difference because of the element of surprise, and an assault rifle would probably have been completely useless. What is particularly unusual is that this occurred in the middle of an urban area, usually this kind of thing happens out in the sticks, or at least it does in this part of the country.
The gun folks are not necessarily wrong about there being bad guys out there, they’re just wrong about the likelihood of such events, the usefulness of guns in dealing with them and the tradeoff of that versus the increased likelihood of accidents or other violent acts associated with the presence of guns in the home. Like someone said, a security system or a bigass (or extremely loud) dog might have served these folks better than having a gun.
sherparick
@Brendanyc: Well, that is part of the problem. The Evangelical Church has changed these last 30 years as it corrupts and is corrupted by its involvment in right wing politics. Always a rich breeding ground for frauds and hucksters (See the “the Duke and Dauphin in Huckleberry Finn or Sinclair Lewis’s Elmer Gantry), it is now engorged with grifters and scoundrals bleeding the extra dime out of southern white working class that has seen its own standard of living declined the last 20 years as regional industries and factories close and dry up. The sell an apocalyptic vision of race war involving the “Blacks” and the “Browns” and that is what is between the lines of Mr. Lapierre’s screech.
J.D. Rhoades
Phoenix? Isn’t that in Arizona, where people already have lots and lots o’guns?
Seems to me that if it’s becoming one of the “kidnapping capitals of the world,” Mr. Lapierre is refuting his own argument.
Zippity
I@Scott S.: @shortstop: I’ll be calling mine. My mother lives in Iowa, and is still upset about gay marraige. It really annoys her when I point out that her state is still standing.
blondie
Wacky Wayne thinks Escape from New York was a documentary.
Ferd of the Nort
GOD HATES… the unarmed?
Svensker
@Corner Stone:
It was. It’s just the Swedes perfected it as “white food” to be served at Church suppers (in the Church basement, natch)
different-church-lady
He just thew a tell in there twice: the rhetoric to this point has been about gun ownership. But he just said buy twice. He’s just completely dropped the pretense that the NRA is anything more than a manufacturer’s promotional organization.
different-church-lady
@Hoodie:
Only a matter of time before Wayne tries the “guns are jobs!” angle.
Actually, Wayne would never do it — he’s too unhinged at this point, too high on his own supply. His successor might try it, though.
gelfling545
For the last 30 years I have always worked in one of the “bad” neighborhoods of our city and the neighborhood I live in isn’t exactly at the top of the tree either. Still, I have never, ever, in my daily round had any occasion in which a firearm would have been even marginally useful. Not one time.
gelfling545
@Jay C: BBC reported this am that there had been police responses for domestic disturbance complaints to that residence.
Corner Stone
@gelfling545:
Never saw any day old fruit lined across the top of a fence? An empty few coke bottles that cried out for .45 plinking?
StringOnAStick
In my 20’s and 30’s I was a 5′ 3″ tall field geologist with large boobs and a winsome figure, and after a couple of super scary close calls I started to carry a gun (plus a knife strapped to my calf under my pants, in case I got taken down). My main defense though was to go hide in the bushes whenever I heard someone approaching.
I think back on that era of my life now, and I realize all my stupid little .22 pistol was going to get me was raped, and then killed. My desire to carry that thing (in a backpack no less – how accessible!) was purely about the fear I felt. Every time I see the “ah needs my gunz ’cause natural disaster!” argument, I know I am dealing with someone who is operating purely at the amygdala level and thus not rational. Certainly someone who is capable of killing though, rational or not.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Apologies if this has been said already, but if only we’d known that guns killed hurricanes and tornadoes many tragedies could have been prevented, including Sandy and Katrina, to name the biggest recent ones.
And Wayne is wrong about crime. I live in DC and have never been the victim of a violent crime. I’ve lived through a couple hurricanes here but didn’t need a gun to survive them. In fact, I think having a gun would have decreased my probability of survival.
Betty Cracker
@StringOnAStick: Scary. In my early 20s, I was a bartender at a disreputable redneck juke joint and once pulled the bar owner’s ancient horse pistol on a snot-slingingly drunk patron who was climbing over the bar at me after I’d ordered him out of the place.
Luckily for everyone, his compadres pulled him off the bar and out the door. I’m pretty sure I would have shot him in the face if they hadn’t. I was scared and mad, and I happened to be standing right next to the place where I knew the gun was stashed when he charged me. I quit the next day.
Corner Stone
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
The more powerful wall of the hurricane would have targeted you just to have a dick size measuring contest? Quien es mas macho?
sherparick
I read the Daily Telegraph on Oskar Pistorius, who apparently went all “Phil Spector” on his girlfriend. Spector tried that “I she was an intruder” BS to. Although story shows that South Africa is about as gun nuts as we are, with Pistorious revealilng some of the same nutty Ted Nugent and Wayne Lapierre. http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/14/16957208-blade-runner-oscar-pistorius-charged-with-murder?lite
If Pistorious was living in Florida or Texas, he may have been able to get away with the “stand your ground defense.”
Mnemosyne
@Hoodie:
Not to freak you and your neighborhood out even more, but that was pretty much the method used by serial killer Richard Rodriguez — he would gain entrance to the house (usually through an open window), shoot the husband in the head before he even woke up, and then torture and kill the wife. It’s a good thing they caught the guys, because it sounds like they may have had fantasies of committing the same kind of crimes.
But that’s also kind of the point — basic security precautions (like closing and locking all of your doors and windows at night) and an alarm system would do a whole lot more to deter those (fortunately rare) kinds of assholes than a gun, because their whole method is to surprise you while you’re sleeping and disable/kill you, not to steal your TV and give you time to aim at them.
Mnemosyne
@StringOnAStick:
There is a difference between being rationally fearful because there’s no help for miles around — as you were in that situation — and having that same level of fear while living in a suburb or safe urban area.
I get why people who live miles out in the country would want and need a gun for self-defense because a 911 call isn’t going to get a deputy there any sooner than 20 minutes, and I have no problem with those people having guns in their house (assuming they store them safely so three-year-olds can’t start fooling around with them). I don’t get the guys who live in suburbs that haven’t had a murder in 20 years and have a police response time of 3 minutes or less deciding that they’re so totally in danger at all times that they must have a gun to protect themselves. Dude, nut up!
g
@Mnemosyne: Yes, Richard Ramirez was an evil guy, but the idea that the average homeowner has to live in fear that his home will be invaded at random by a serial killer is insane. Purely insane and paranoiac.
gogol's wife
Late to this thread, but the front page of my home newspaper has the headline “Man Threatens Plow Guy with Loaded Shotgun.” He thought the guy was putting some of the snow from a parking lot onto his property. A capital offense, certainly.
JaneE
One of my neighbors, a woman in her 60’s, always carries a gun when she goes out for her daily walk. I was told that she always carries, everywhere she goes. I will assume that she has a permit and does it legally, but I am not about to ask her.
I have no idea what she expects to shoot. I do know that her property sports only republican candidates’ signs, with assorted tea party sloganeering. She actually seems like a nice lady when you make small talk. But the idea someone of running around my street with a gun makes me uneasy. It was unusual enough to be mentioned, thank goodness.
johnny aquitard
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I’ve been through a tornado, fortunately only a weak F-1 and we didn’t lose our roof but we lost shingles. One neighbor lost half of his roof, and another neighbor’s garage imploded into splinters (His house was unscathed. Not even a shingle lost. Tornadoes are weird). Lots of big trees were knocked over. Fortunately no one was hurt.
In all of this there was never a need for a gun. Neither before nor after. It would’ve been the most ludicrous, most useless thing imaginable.
Instead, in the aftermath all the neighbors came out of their houses, shouted to each other if they were OK, and then we as a community began cleaning up the wreckage, helping each other.
It was the most anti-‘I need a gun’ thing ever. It was people supporting each other, not turning on each other with fear and suspicion.
Wayne LaPierre seeks to frighten people, to make them fearful and paranoid, to turn them against their own neighbors and community, to disconnect us from each other in crises when we naturally should turn to each other, all for his own advantage. He is a hateful, evil, despicable man.
johnny aquitard
@different-church-lady:
I caught that too, and noticed the shift. You’re right, it’s a naked sales pitch now.
Tehanu
@Punchy:
YOu forgot hurricanes!
I do really wonder why anybody would need a gun to defend against a windstorm.
LeftistsRnutty
@Punchy:
No…because in the event of a natural disaster looters and gangs will come to your house to take your food/tvs/electronic you idiot.
Matt
And at Algiers Point post-Sandy, we instead saw the NRA’s version of utopia:
http://www.thenation.com/article/katrinas-hidden-race-war
I mean, what right-thinking American would ever dream of abridging a good ol’ boy’s right to exploit civil disorder to go hunting for unheartlandishly-hued refugees?