Outsourced entirely to Charles P. Pierce:
If your “way of life” involves handing deadly weapons to five-year olds, your way of life is completely screwed up and you should change it immediately because it is stupid and wrong. (And, again, also, too: goddammit, “learning to use and respect a gun” means at least knowing that the fking thing is loaded when it’s sitting in the corner of the parlor like it’s a damn umbrella stand or something, and we should talk about that part, too.) It is not in any way “normal” to hand a kindergartner a firearm. If a mother from the inner-city of, say, Philadelphia did that, and the kid subsequently shot his sister to death, Fox News never would stop yelling about the crisis in African American communities and the Culture Of Death, and rap music, too. If your culture is telling you that children who have only recently emerged from toddlerhood should have their own guns, then your culture is deadly and dangerous and that should concern you, too. If your culture demands that, in the face of a general national outrage over the killing of other children, your politics work to loosen the gun laws you have, as they apparently did in Kentucky, then your culture is making your politics stupid and wrong and you should change them, too. I do not have to understand these people any more, and it is way too early in the day to be drinking this much.
Image: Portrait of a girl with gun and hound, after the style of Joshua Reynolds, 18th or 19th century
Karmus
What’s it gonna take? I wish I knew.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
I’m not sure kids should be riding bikes or anything at that age without serious parental supervision. Who’s idea is to allow them a GUN where it can be reached and used without parental supervision? Even a fucking BB gun or anything, for god’s sake.
THIS is where I find myself the absolute most baffled and enraged at this absurd ‘guns are freedom’ culture we have. The abdication of responsibility, because to expect any responsibility or restriction on these things is somehow tantamount to the highest treason.
Morzer
Look, someone has to protect the freedom of two year old girls to be shot dead by their slightly older brothers. It’s what made America Fuck Yeah what it is today.
japa21
Pierce is a national treasure. His posts on Walker in WI should be Pulitzer Prize material.
scav
I went and shot the maximum
The game laws would allow,
Two Game Wardens, Seven Toddlers, and a Cow.
Cassidy
@Karmus:
I think we all know. It’s just that the answer really sucks balls for everyone.
KG
Here’s the thing I don’t get… what exactly is the need for a gun in the 21st century? I mean, I get (on some level) wanting to have one or two for extreme cases of self-defense or for hunting (though I don’t really get hunting, that’s another discussion). I can even get collectors who like to buy old guns, but most likely not use them. But what I don’t understand, and never really understood even at my highest levels of glibertarianism, is why do you need them so bad?
100 years ago, 150 years ago, when you couldn’t just go to the store and buy 30 lbs of ground beef, I understand the need. But today? It just doesn’t make sense.
ETA: and, yeah, I really don’t understand why anyone thinks its appropriate to put them in the hands of children, especially ones so young.
Gin & Tonic
Am I the only one who thinks that “also, too” has long since overstayed its welcome?
Ash Can
The combination of anti-worker policies and corporate deregulation will be the primary cause of the death of this nation, but the Second Amendment, which appears to be wrecked beyond salvage at this point, will surely speed its demise.
Rosalita
What shocked me about this as well was the father on camera saying his daughter “is in a better place”. Okay, yeah, Christianity, Heaven and all that if that’s your belief. But wouldn’t you prefer her ALIVE? Is that supposed to make it more tolerable? Yeesh.
Morzer
@Gin & Tonic:
I also too agree with you.
kc
Here in SC, a toddler picked up his father’s loaded gun that was left on a table and shot himself in the head. The father was charged with involuntary manslaughter. Dad is black.
A few years ago, a toddler was rummaging through her grandma’s purse in Sam’s Club, found grandma’s loaded gun, and shot herself. No charges were filed. I’m pretty sure Grandma is white. She was also a magistrate judge at the time of the shooting.
Rosalita
@Gin & Tonic:
No, you are not, anything that is a reminder of that harpie has overstayed it’s welcome.
raven
@Gin & Tonic: And add “reached out”, “opened up” and the insanely annoying “sort of”. (Steve Kornacki, are you listening).
David in NY
Does that portrait of girl with gun not conflict with the message here?
scav
@Rosalita: If he really believes his daughter is in a better place now, a) what does that say about his views on the quality of the familylife he’s nurturing and b) Why did he outsource getting that girl to a better environment?
Morzer
Interesting story that illustrates some of our double standards on these things:
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/5/2/112337/4733
http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/05/02/kiera-wilmot-science-experiment-expulsion-felony
catclub
@KG: “is why do you need them so bad?”
I am not a gun fan, but I am also not an iPod fan. Lots of people really want/wanted them.
phil
KG
@Rosalita: I think the “they’re in a better place now” stuff is just how some people cope with death. Of course, he’d prefer she be alive – at least if he has any sense of humanity – but since he isn’t Thoros of Myr, that’s how he copes.
Gin & Tonic
Am I also the only one who hasn’t wasted a minute of time wondering about the “trauma” the family is going through in this case? Fuck them. I hope they never have a day of peace for the rest of their miserable fucking lives.
gbear
So how long until BF shows up and tries to tell us that present day gun culture is not stupid and wrong? 3-2-1-
catclub
@Morzer: nope, sorry. No hypocrisy in evidence.
The key words are ‘on school grounds’. If she had fired a gun ‘on school grounds’ the response would be likely extremely similar.
Cassidy
@KG: Well, there isn’t exactly the need for a gun, but it is still the great equalizer. As far as home defense goes, I don’t think that’s a bad reason to own a gun, but people who buy guns for home defense don’t think it through. They buy guns that are completely useless as home defense weapons and they’re untrained, uneducated, etc., but I don’t begrudge a parent or caregiver from wanting a gun to protect their family. It’s the “self-defense” crowd that has amped everything. Once you start carrying a gun in public, everything changes. Either way it’s a way to overcome a deep rooted fear.
The second part of the problem is that guns are now looked at as the same accessory, like a purse. For a lot of these yahoos, it really is a fashion statement.
But why do they need them? They’re planning for their fantasies to come true.
The Other Bob
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
BINGO! – When did the right to anything mean freedom from responsibility?
Morzer
@catclub:
Look at the second link I posted. She was expelled and possibly prosecuted precisely because of a law about discharging firearms on school property. Bear in mind that what she did was to cause the top to pop off a bottle. No-one got hurt. Think the NRA will take up her ‘right to bear arms’ any time soon?
raven
@Cassidy: My guns are not for home defense. They are on a rack over a door and the ammo is in another room upstairs. My pistol has a trigger lock on it and, if you give me 20 minutes, I’ll find the key.
Cassidy
@kc: @Morzer: Well yeah. The 2nd Amendment and all these “accidents” are only for white people. Fuck you if you’re brown.
@Gin & Tonic: Not at all. I’m rooting that the parents are so grief stricken that they do the honorable thing off a bridge and give their son, who they have irreparably damaged, a chance to grow up in a normal family.
gbear
@Rosalita:
Did her father really say that? I thought I was being overly sarcastic when I nailed that one yesterday. Shoot me now.
Cassidy
@raven: Neither were mine. Hell, for the longest time, my .45 sat in it’s case disassembled after I cleaned it.
Warren Terra
If you gave a five-year-old a chainsaw, or a samurai sword, social services would be all over you. If you let the five-year-old drive a car, the authorities would have the kid in foster care tout suite. But there’s apparently an entire industry that exists to market rifles to toddlers.
MikeJ
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
Exactly. I don’t have a problem with a 5 yr old using a .22. But that means mom or dad keeps it and is with them every time it is fired. I have a huge problem with somebody who doesn’t get to pick which socks he’s going to wear today being responsible for making sure a firearm is properly stored.
If you ever have to tell your kid to pick up his lego he’s too young to have a gun.
Hill Dweller
Growing up in the South(partly in the rural South), guns were ubiquitous. At the very least, Benjamin air rifles were required equipment for the cool kids. Shotguns and .22’s were also must haves, depending on age and activity. Every boy(and many girls) was expected to hunt.
Some parents were very good about gun safety, but a lot weren’t. Hell, some were never around. My parents hated guns, so my brother and I were constantly sneaking around to use them.
Once I discovered girls, alcohol and weed, guns left my life for good.
Looking back, it all seems crazy and silly, but when you’re in that culture it is ordinary.
Morzer
@gbear:
“All of our five year old boys are busy right now, but if you stay on hold, one of our domestic firearm operatives will be with you shortly.”
*The Valkyrie Ride plays softly in the background*
shepherdwong
My exact thought when I read about this.
aimai
@Cassidy:
I read the longer account of the death of the 2 year old over at TPM. These people were living in an isolated and semi rural place with no near neighbors. That being said I think the idea that you need to “prep” kids for the hunting lifestyle by giving them guns is part of the whole “culture of anxiety” thing that the right wing have about everything–from religion to masculnity. They claim that what their culture requires is “natural” but they actually exhibit extreme signs of believing that if you don’t create certain predispositions from birth onwards it doesn’t happen. Girls won’t be girls without pink and play cookstoves and boy’s wont be boys without play guns and play unting. Worse, apparently they believe that grown men can’t be proficient at hunting etc… unless they are given the real thing quite early.
There is no way that a young child needs to handle a real gun-even if you think he is going to need to grow up to be a hunter. All the main things you need to teach him have nothing to do with firing the gun. And we don’t think it about cars or any other piece of major machinery–children don’t need to handle the real thing in order to be disposed to it later, even if you believe that the practice is going to be integral to their adult life.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@catclub: Yes, but the primary purpose of an iPod is to let everyone know what bad taste in music you have, not to kill.
Morzer
@aimai:
Which is also why they are obsessed with the belief that schools are teaching their children about gay sex, evolution and, for all I know, opposable thumbs.
raven
@Cassidy: My WWII japanese rifle was disabled before it was brought stateside but that 10″ bayonet could get someone’s attention! We always figured throwing a 45 at the bad guys would be effective.
Butch
@Hill Dweller: I live way out in the country in the Upper Peninsula and one of the few things I don’t like about it is the number of little kids with guns and no supervision. They even close the schools here on the opening day of deer season.
Redshirt
What are you all talking about? Isn’t this exactly what the NRA/McCardle wants? Armed kindergartners to protect our schools?
And you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet.
Now, watch this drive.
Comrade Dread
@Gin & Tonic: Yes.
I have two young children who are precious to me that I wouldn’t trust with a plastic scissors, let alone a firearm, so I understand the outrage and I share it. I also understand the outrage because every day brings another litany of dead people killed because of the proliferation of guns. And I understand the outrage that the only difference between the tobacco industry and the gun industry is that the latter managed to buy enough congressman so as to immunize itself from any liability for the intended use of its products and the death toll that results every god damned day.
But it’s because I have those two small, precious children that I do feel for them. Because if, God, heaven, and all the saints forbid, anything happened to either of them and I never got to see them smile or laugh or play again, I don’t know what I would do. So, yeah, I still feel for them.
NotMax
One thing have not seen or heard (though certainly haven’t ingested every word about the story) is if the gun has been taken away from the 5-year-old’s access or even removed from the home.
Cassidy
@aimai: I never fired a gun until I was 20 and joined the Army. Before that, I had seen real guns one time at Scout World when the Navy people had some on display, including machine guns. But you know, I became quite a decent shot. It seems not handling a gun when I was a child never held me back.
That being said, if I were a hunter, I would want to start my childrne early on handling a gun, starting with air rifles and moving up to 22LR, so on and so forth, simply so that I could spend years ingraining into them gun safety, shooting fundamnetals, gun safety, and, well, gun safety. There is no way, no how that my children would ever be able to access *my guns without me present. I just can’t fathom storing firearms in such a way that a 5 y/o could casually get their hands on one.
*The only thing I have now is an antique shotgun stamped with “Wards” from when you could mail order guns. I have no intention of putting any ammunition through it.
Morzer
@NotMax:
Well, where would you place your bet? Mine is on the culture that argues that guns don’t kill people.
Wag
Guns in the hands of 5 year olds make perfect sense
Just ask any Liberian war lord or the Lords Resistance Army in Uganda.
Catsy
@Gin & Tonic: No. Originally it was mildly entertaining for mocking Palin and reminding everyone of how stupid she is. This far removed in time and context, it’s in danger of actually becoming ingrained in common usage.
Cassidy
@Catsy: Like agreeance?
scav
Militia must be 1770ese for Toddler, — it’s just the language. So long as the 5-year-old can pick it up, it’s Scalia-approved as meeting original intent. Those invaders won’t know what hit them at ankle level.
will say the dangerous hordes near me have taken out plenty with their back-up improvised lego devices scattered in minefields.
Morzer
@Catsy:
I guess we”ll have to refudiate it harder.
Amir Khalid
Yesterday we were all marveling here that a company exists whose main business is making rifles for small children. Rifles for small children: the very idea sounds obscene.
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
In another thread here a while back, I remember arguing with another commenter, who defended not wearing motorcycle crash helmets as an expression of personal freedom. A man had been in the news because he died of head injuries sustained while riding helmetless — ironically, in a motorbike rally protesting helmet laws.
NotMax
@raven
Always chuckled when the bad guys did that on the George Reeves’ Adventures of Superman show after watching all their rounds bounce off him.
Mostly because Superman ducked.
Redshirt
@Wag: You know they’re the good guys cuz they’ve got the word “Lord” in their title.
Hill Dweller
@Butch: My parents hated guns, and refused to buy one for me or my brother. But we knew whose house had the guns and/or lax parental supervision.
Looking back, if I or my brother had been shot, my parents would have likely been blamed by society, despite being good parents.
Obviously, giving a 5 year old a .22, and leaving it around the house, is criminally stupid. But I don’t envy parents trying to prevent kids from getting their hands on guns from other sources.
Jay in Oregon
@Karmus:
Just remember that each shooting death in this country (all 3,810 since the Sandy Hook shooting, for the record) is an isolated incident.
So one explosion in Boston is the sign of a massive conspiracy to destroy America, yet 3,810 deaths caused by firearms merits a shrug.
scav
OTish, but linked to this and the military suicides thing from yesterday: Suicide Rates Rise Sharply in U.S
canuckistani
@Gin & Tonic:
I feel bad for the kid – he’s too young to be responsible for his actions, and it isn’t his fault he was born to idiots.
gene108
@Karmus:
Republican control of Washington, D.C. to the point they feel confident enough that they can edge a bit leftward and not freak out their base and/or their base doesn’t have options, but to grudgingly acknowledge Republicans occasionally have to govern and do stuff like gun control.
Look at the lack of a freak-out, when Bush, Jr. was in office and Republicans controlled the House and Senate, when the Department of Education was expanded and local control of schools was seriously superseded like never before, for example.
The militia types just hung back, because a Christian – George Walker Bush – was doing these things, so it would all be good in the end for them.
Richard
@canuckistani:
I suspect that the odds that he commits suicide before he reaches adulthood are very high. It’s going to be extremely hard for him to grow up with the guilt of killing his sister.
low-tech cyclist
Tom: X large but finite? Countably infinite? Uncountably large? Inquiring math geek minds want to know!
catclub
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): KG basically asked “Why do people have guns? I see no particular need for them.”
And I answered that they have guns because they want guns,
need (or usefulness, or dangerousness) does not really come into the question in many cases, just like with iPods.
I have a homemade potato gun. It is totally not useful, and if I aimed and shot it at the wrong thing, could probably cause a serious bruise, but it is fun as heck to fire off at night. And it makes a satisfying whump sound!
All this discussion is just making me think how much fun shooting guns might be.
Catsy
@catclub: Let me know when your iPod develops the capability of propelling lead slugs to a lethal velocity. And yes, I get that you were answering the “need” question, but that question is meaningless and the analogy inane without context.
Random J. Nerd
Its actually worse. People are saying “5 with a gun”, but at least some articles mention “had it for a year”.
So these people actually gave a gun to a FOUR year old. As someone mentioned above plastic scissors time.
catclub
@NotMax: “Mostly because Superman ducked.”
This is why George Bush was a Super President.
Roger Moore
@Rosalita:
Considering what the old place is like, I’m not prepared to disagree.
zombie rotten mcdonald
@Morzer:
Also, too; me.
gbear
@catclub: When potato cannons are outlawed, only outlaws will have potatoes.
Trollhattan
@Rosalita:
People’s evidence the eleventieth that the remaining child/children need to be removed from the home and raised by sane people who can help them 1. reach adulthood and 2. have a chance at not becoming insane like the sperm-and-egg team.
The question is not “haven’t the parents suffered enough?” it’s “how are these kids going to ever survive?”
Richard
A nauseating video is from the Crickett “My First Gun” youtube channel…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyWL13xzD8k
How old do you think the child being taught how to use the cute pink rifle is? I’d say four at most.
Lawrence
@KG: The Nuge did an interview about attending the SOTU address and having no knife or gun on his person, and how small it made him feel. I used to be like that myself. And then I grew up. I am too fat and out of shape to be much good in a fight anymore, should such a bizarre thing happen in my life. But if I have to, I and some fool will find out how much kung fu I still have in me. Remember, tough talk Ted had his chance to let someone “suck on his machine gun” during the Vietnam war, but found a way to decline. After Sandy Hook, I took out my 10mm pistol and looked at it. I thought “whatever I get from this is not worth those kids’ lives. Maybe we should melt them all.” But in Wayne’s world its: This Is Just What THEY Have Been Waiting For!!! I guarantee you these people pose with their guns in the mirror to see how tough they look, and pretend they are Rambo, or John McClaine. Any mention of any laws of any kind trips the lizard brain. There will never be any level of carnage that breaks them. It’s the moderate enablers, your non crazy friends who post 2nd Amendment crap on Facebook just to piss off liberals, the people who have not examined why they believe X or vote Y in 25 years, who might be shocked or shamed into changing.
Trollhattan
@gbear:
Busy helping “Chet” remove his ankle monitor. They work best as a team, you know.
JPL
I still remember the good old days, when the discussion was centered around children and toy guns. Are pink girls for girls really necessary? WTF
Trollhattan
@Jay in Oregon:
Enhanced, for greater displeasure.
Mandalay
@catclub:
.
You might think instead about the inanity of your comparing guns to iPods.
YellowJournalism
@KG:
For many families, hunting and fishing keep grocery costs down. My uncle and his sons have hunted most of their lives. Even after the costs of equipment and licenses, it can be a big savings for them to stock up on meat that way. They basically hunt and fish, even clam dig, and freeze the meat to use over the year. I have coworkers who do the same thing in their families. Jut because you can buy meat at the supermarket does not mean that hunting isn’t an option, let alone a necessity for people.
But this lifestyle does not excuse irresponsible gun ownership, and I find the guns manufactured for small children to be abhorrent. There should be mandatory required mandatory safety classes and registration, insurance, and high liability for owners of guns.
Trollhattan
@catclub:
If you’re truly unaware of differences between guns and iPods, then heaven help your family and neighbors.
Eric in nny
@Gin & Tonic:
NOT UNTIL SHE GOES AWAY! For Good.
Betty Cracker
My gun-nut father had loaded firearms all over the house when I was a kid. It’s a wonder my siblings and I never shot ourselves or each other. I made my dad buy and use a gun safe before allowing my kid to be at his house unsupervised by me.
Hungry Joe
@Cassidy:
I do. If you really want to keep your family safe, don’t have a gun in the house. But I kind of give up: You simply can’t convince way too many people that no one is going to come into their house and try to kill them.*
Having a gun in the house for self-defense is like carrying a five-gallon can of gasoline in your car in case someday you might have to set a backfire somewhere.
* All right, it happens … but so rarely as to be statistically insignificant. “Not insignificant to the people it happens to!” scream the anecdotal-evidence slingers. As I said, I kind of give up.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@catclub: Don’t underestimate the potato gun. Friend of mine had a misfire on his in high school. Looked down the pipe to see what the problem was and it went off.
He died a few days later. I was surprised it took that long, given how much of his head was missing.
gbear
@Trollhattan: Couldn’t BF just shoot it off with the gun that he keeps loaded and ‘handy’?
pat
@Richard:
That is horrifying. How long before that little girl decides she knows enough already and can do it all herself, when Daddy’s not around.
These people are nuts.
Roy G.
I’m so old I remember when the NRA’s main mission was to teach gun safety. Anybody remember those quaint days when kids like little Ralphie in A Christmas Story had to beg and plead for a Red Ryder bb gun?
Trollhattan
@Eric in nny:
I’d sign the “No mo’ also, too” pledge the day the snowgriftress drops from public view, forever. Be happy to.
Trollhattan
@gbear:
Capital idea! Hopefully 1. it’s a shotgun and 2. they’ve each had a case of Bud Lite.
Cassidy
@Hungry Joe: I don’t think it’s the best option, but it certainly isn’t the worst reason for owning a gun. Honestly, decent lighting and a dog are the best home defense, but guns seem to give peace of mind. People live in fear and while it may be based ona delusion, it’s still a real and palabaple fear. I thinkit’s dumb, but I understand when a single mom says she has a gun for home defense. I get it. I think the same way you do on it, but I get it.
Hungry Joe
@catclub:
Now, that intrigues me. I assume you reload. Russset? White? Red? What’s your position on yams?
cckids
@kc: Yeah. Here in S.NV, about 15 years ago, 2 infants died from car-heat related issues. First case, the mom, just back from maternity leave, forgot she had the baby in the back seat & bypassed day care, left the kid in the car all day while at work. Summer day here, inside that parked car it is +150 degrees. Of course, the baby died. No charges, because “she made an understandable mistake, she’s suffered enough”. Mom was a white middle-management type.
Second case, a 19-20 ish couple, have their 2-3 month old baby with them in their car while they drive to a (I believe) job interview. Because they are broke, their car has no AC, but they try to keep the kid hydrated & fanned. The baby dies from heat-related issues. These kids are charged with something like involuntary manslaughter, because the sheriff says that “anyone should have known it was dangerous & too hot”. They are Hispanic.
Justice is blind, my ass.
Trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
Have told my kid she’s to call me immediately if a gun ever appears at one of her friends’ houses, but I’m left to hope she actually would. A couple of her buddies’s fathers have “collections” and while I generally trust them to keep them locked up, I can never relax knowing they’re in the home.
There are always brothers to muck up the parents’ precautions.
catclub
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Wow. Ouch. But now that I think of it, potato goes about 100 – 150 yards.
SatanicPanic
I like drinking beer with my dad. One day, when he’s old enough, I hope I will be able to enjoy drinking beer with my son. I usually drink responsibly.
What I don’t do is try to pretend that my drinking is anything more than a vice. That my drinking protects freedom. That anyone should have to die so that I can enjoy it. I wish the gun people could say something similar.
Morzer
@gbear:
I fear BF’s little pink rifle has been firing blanks for years.
Roger Moore
@Lawrence:
He’s misdiagnosed the problem. His problem is that he is small and wants a gun because it makes him feel big. It doesn’t actually make him big, just makes him feel that way.
johnny aquitard
@Cassidy:
You’ve seen BBQ guns, have you?
They’re fancy shiny expensive usually custom handguns one takes to social events to show off. Fashion accessories, IOW.
It’s a southern thing, unsurprisingly.
Ash Can
@Butch: I have no problem with parents in areas where hunting is popular (and perhaps even necessary, in the case of poor rural populations) teaching their kids how to handle hunting weapons. However, just like with driving permits and licenses, there should be age limits and certification involved — kids should not be allowed to handle guns or be trained in their use until they reach a certain age (15/16, as with automobiles, sounds fine to me), and before they’re allowed to hunt with them they should be required to demonstrate proficiency in the safe handling and operation of them. In addition, though, shooting practice should be limited to accredited practice ranges, and there should be strict liability issues for parents who are found to be negligent in the case of accidents.
Moreover, I wouldn’t be surprised if serious hunters wouldn’t be all in favor of such restrictions, or similar ones producing much the same result. It’s the wacko sovereign-citizen/end-timer/I-need-to-arm-myself-against-my-own-government types who have fucked everything up for everyone.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@catclub: Just be careful, wouldn’t want anyone to end up like Jeff did.
cckids
@pat:
This. Because that is what 4-year olds do. I remember reading somewhere that ages 4-5 are when most childhood deadly accidents occur (before driving age). Because they are strong & coordinated enough to get into all kinds of things (unlocking doors, firing guns, getting access to the pool) but don’t have the judgement to know the consequences of what they are doing.
Older_Wiser
Dog whistle, anyone? https://securecdn.disqus.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/484/4728/original.jpg
This is the parent company, Keystone Sporting Firearms, the parent co of the Crickett for Kids.
Draw your own conclusions.
Trollhattan
@johnny aquitard:
Frankly, I find a pair of ostrich boots a lot more suitable.
Friends hosted a “murder party” last year and one of the roles was a female country singer. We were halfway through the evening, three-quarters through the bar stock when we found our country singer was packing an actual six-shooter.
SG
Charlie’s post includes this quote:
Now doesn’t that sound like the wimpy “cultural relativism” that the right loves to ridicule? Well, you know, I can be a cultural absolutist with the best of ’em and I’m absolutely sure that so-called “normal way of life” in “rural America” is pathological when it includes manufacturing kid-sized rifles as if they’re quarter-size violins and handing them to five-year-olds.
JR
@Morzer: Todd Starnes and the FuxNation crew are too busy trying to defend a kid who “forgot” a shotgun was in his car when he drove to school. They can’t spare a minute for this girl.
JR
Daily reminder: We live in a country where the Vice President shot a man in the face, and the VICTIM apologized.
Our gun culture is seriously, sincerely fucked up.
Trollhattan
@SG:
When the Republicans begin running for 2016 (any week now) think of this “reality” when you hear them speak of “the real America/ the heartland/ flyover country.” They’re imagining the country is accurately represented by a few percent of its population.
celticdragonchick
I waited until my son was 11 before letting him shoot an air rifle, and he will be 12 when I let him shoot a .22 under my close supervision. I see no reason at all to allow a 5 year old child access to a deadly weapon. The only weapon that has ever been in reach of any kids at my house is my Brown Bess musket, and that only because I know damned good and well that no kid will be able to load it.
Trollhattan
@JR:
A waste of perfectly good birdshot. If Cheney had been loaded with lawyershot than they would have been even.
TDS piece with Jason Jones going to one of these tame-game shooting galleries was one of those moments when I realized the actual Cheney story was worse than it seemed. “Sport” my ass.
Older_Wiser
Goddamn this fucking bitch. And the rest of them can go to hell, too. They are gonorrheal sores on the body politic.
Don’t miss live NRA News coverage from the 142nd NRA
Annual Meetings in Houston, Texas. Tune in for the following broadcasts,
all times are central.
FRI, MAY 3 • 1-4 PM CT (Live on NRA.Org & NRANews.com)
NRA-ILA Leadership Forum with featured speakers:
• Sarah Palin
• Ted Cruz
• Bobby Jindal
• Rick Perry
• Rick Santorum
• Asa Hutchinson
• Jeanine Pirro
• John Bolton
None of them give a shit about kids shooting other kids, or human life, period.
They don’t give a location*, but I’m going to find it. If only I could get down there with a megaphone…
*George R. Brown Convention Center
Chris
@Cassidy:
Every time I see news like this, it makes me wonder how many “normal families” we’ve got left in this country.
@SG:
Oh, that’s occurred to me multiple times, about many different things.
My personal favorite: their tendency to write off and excuse cherished American icons from the past who practiced slavery, practiced ethnic cleansing or supported segregation because (basically) “oh, everyone was doing it back then.” Really? So by that standard you’re totally okay with honor killings in Saudi Arabia, right? Oh. Gee, I wonder what the difference might be.
Stephen1947
@Gin & Tonic: Yes.
pseudonymous in nc
Kinder Eggs are illegal in the US, because they contain a non-edible thing (the toy in the plastic egg). So whenever you read “gun” or “firearm”, swap in “Kinder Egg” instead.
This is fucking collective cultural insanity.
Karen in GA
@Chris:
Ix-nay on the onor-hay illings-kay. Don’t want them getting any ideas.
pseudonymous in nc
@scav:
It says that SE Kentucky is one of those places where the afterlife provides ongoing consolation for the now-life.
And in a way, it vindicates Obama’s “clinging” speech from back in ’08, where he was talking specifically about dirt-poor Appalachia — inelegantly, but fucking accurately.
SFAW
Maybe this makes me a heartless prick, but one of the thoughts that occurred to me was: “Think of it as evolution in action.”
fuckwit
gun lockers at the range, in urban/suburban areas. gun locker in the house in rural areas. should be required upon condition of revoking gun licence and criminal fine.
safe, responsible gun ownership requires regulation
pseudonymous in nc
Put your tween child on a city bus or subway train, or, worse, let him/her cycle/walk to school: “reckless endangerment.”
Give your 5-year-old a rifle: “part of the culture.”
Chris
@pseudonymous in nc:
I remember a couple of friends from the region that supported Hillary and were furious when Obama said it at first.
Once the summer had passed, Obama had become the nominee, they’d gotten behind him and they’d had a little time to cool off, both of them were like “well, to be honest, it’s really kind of true.”
scav
@SFAW: alas, minimal parental investment in individual offspring, generating large numbers of same and indifference to wastage does work to maintain the species. They’ve not quite worked into assexual production of gametes, but some are doing their damndest to pretend that’s how it’s done.
nastybrutishntall
@MikeJ: Do you have also have no problems with a 5 year old driving a car? Operating a forklift? Flying a plane? All these are potentially deadly things we keep away from FUCKING FIVE YEAR OLDS. With laws. And no one is complaining.
JCT
@Older_Wiser: What? Where’s that pants-shitting draft dodger, Nugent?
Is it a bad thing to light a candle and wish for a big meteor strike on the Houston Convention Center? What a line-up of stupid and bellicose.
gelfling545
@@pseudonymous in nc:
That was always the real problem with it: that it was quite true.
gelfling545
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): A Viet Nam era vet of my acquaintance was telling me a bit ago about his introduction to firearms in the army. The instructor announced at their first session “The purpose of this weapon is to kill.” Brutally honest and something always to be borne in mind.
patrick II
@Gin & Tonic:
“also too” may have overstayed it’s welcome — but I like “refudiate”.
hobart
I own many guns and you’re absolutely right that the parents were irresponsible here.
I didn’t even get my own “bb gun” until I was 10 or 11 and I didn’t get my own firearm until I had spent a year accompanying family members on hunts while I carried a borrowed, unloaded gun to prove that I knew how to handle it.
lovable liberal
@Karmus:
It’s going to take an asshole in body armor and kevlar with multiple weapons walking into the NRA national meeting and hosing down the place, while all the dickless wonders try to get their semis off their belts.
No, scratch that, it’s wrong. They would just say that they needed more and bigger guns.
SFAW
@scav:
I was going to write a quasi-witty response, about breeding out intelligence, but then re-read what I wrote, and realized it was the kind of thing better suited to Free Republic or RedStoat.
Fuck. I can’t believe I’ve gotten to that point.
There wouldn’t be enough Ave marias or Paternosters I could say to earn a Te absolvo, if I had followed through. Fuck.
Origuy
Meet the new president of the NRA:
Older
About a generation ago, near where I live, a toddler crawled under the sink in his mama’s restaurant, and drank some of her high-test detergent, which she had thoughtfully stored in a pop bottle. It destroyed the kid’s digestive tract, he was in the hospital for a year or so, collections were made all over town for his parents, and there was a lot of talk about how terrible this was, for them. Meanwhile, I was thinking, “These people really deserve their Darwin Award.”
I wonder, now that he’s grown up, if he ever thinks about why that stuff was where he could reach it. Or is he leaving dangerous stuff around for his kids to find?