Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Bark louder, little dog.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

The willow is too close to the house.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

I was promised a recession.

In my day, never was longer.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

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Reader Interactions

148Comments

  1. 1.

    Howard Beale IV

    Kismet, I suppose. I’d rather use unconventional weapons/self-defense than a firearm-to me that seems like a pussies way out.

    (and FWIW, I unloaded on my US rep when it turns out they were on the right side of an amendment after all. I quickly emailed them that I was in error.)

    Hopefully the FSM will take pity on me. Otherwise, I’m SBT’ed.

  3. 3.

    PeakVT

    Because they’re using the guns to cope with their fears, the two most prominent being the fear of the constant change that the modern world causes, and the fear of people that don’t look like them. Fearful people are often dangerous and unpredictable.

  4. 4.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Well I have to say and be completely and utterly cynical that the majority of gun deaths in this country are suicides (60% at last count), so we could be seeing a serious thinning of the herd deal. Eventually all of these crazy gun owners will either have a) shot themselves or b) died by suicide by cop so we really should encourage the idea. Unfortunately a lot of children are going to have to die in the mean time while irresponsible parents leave guns for four year olds to kill themselves with but you know freedom and all that.

  5. 5.

    Neutron Flux

    Beats me.

    However, it is true by the gun owners that I know. Angry people should not concealed carry, but they do.

  6. 6.

    sublime33

    I have noticed from Facebook that those guys I grew up with who were among the last ones picked for sports teams in gym class are by far the biggest gun nuts of all today.

  10. 10.

    Violet

    They don’t really love guns. They are afraid and guns are the objects they use to attempt to hide that fear. If someone told them Pop Tarts would make them feel less fear, they’d have houses and garages full of Pop Tarts.

    Unfortunately for the rest of us, guns can hurt innocent bystanders. Pop Tarts generally only hurt the person eating them.

  13. 13.

    PsiFighter37

    Don’t question the 2nd Amendment, Cole. Why are you so fucking anti-American?!

    PF37 +3

  20. 20.

    PsiFighter37

    Also, too, the student loan bill that passed the Senate is a shit sandwich. Democrats basically folded on this way too easily. Sure, short-term rates are lower, but they’re going to go up (given interest rates are near all-time lows).

    81-18, too. That means there are a lot of asshole Democratic senators in the chamber. Also, too, the White House must not give two shits about the long-term implications of this to be touting it so quickly. Sigh.

  22. 22.

    revrick

    Just as the greatest dogmatist is secretly riddled with doubts, I suspect those who feel powerless or fear their power is ebbing would want them to shore up that crumbling edifice of self.

  26. 26.

    anubis bard

    It’s a fantasy thing. They spin out these unlikely scenarios where they will whip out their guns and be a hero. Then when things actually happen – and not like in their fantasy – they shoot themselves or someone else in the confusion and incompetence.

  27. 27.

    Southern Beale

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    It’s worse! I went to the doctor this morning and he gave me a cortisone shot. Did NOTHING. In fact, now my forearm is swollen, too.

    I called the doctor back and they’re like, “Oh, don’t worry, it hasn’t had time to fully work yet …” It had been 6 hours. I’d think getting worse after 6 hours would not be a good sign.

    But … I’m keeping cold packs on it and hopefully by tomorrow I won’t be in even worse shape.

  28. 28.

    mai naem

    i listened to an interview with the guy who helped the defense with jury picking with the Zimmerman trial and he said one of the kind of people he didn’t want on the jury were people who didn’t like guns. He said he didn’t care about race and actually didn’t care if there were blacks on the jury.

    Anybody else watch Huma Abedin in the cringeworthy press conference yesterday and think she was kind of smirking/about to start laughing in a “are you kidding?’ kind of way at the attention and/or at her husband? She might have just been so damn nervous that she wanted to laugh. I have a tendency of doing that. I dunno.

  29. 29.

    Linda Featheringill

    My big brother [long gone] owned several guns but didn’t hunt and seldom went to a shooting range. He had some older ones that he refurbished and was very proud of them. He had a rifle from WWI and maybe a half dozen others.

    I wonder who got his gun collection? It never occurred to me to ask.

    But was he nutty? Hey, ALL of my family was nuts. Every one of them. And my daughter’s SO thinks that I’m nuts, so maybe it was genetic.

  31. 31.

    Roger Moore

    @Violet:

    If someone told them Pop Tarts would make them feel less fear, they’d have houses and garages full of Pop Tarts.

    Not exactly PopTarts, but there is the whole business with survival seeds, which pretty clearly proves your point.

  32. 32.

    Hal

    Speaking of gun nuts; I am amazed at the lengths some folks are going in with this Zimmermann saves family story. Car turns over, family unharmed, Zimmerman is conveniently there to help them out of car.

    Superman returns!!!

    PS: it’s awfully coincidental. I’m wondering how many more accidents dude will show up at. Neighborhood watch syndrome by proxy.

  34. 34.

    Aimai

    @Southern Beale: call in a specialist. Don’t rely on the word of someone who is just going by rote. It shouldn’t still be getting worse. Can you call someone, even st random, who is an expert in wasp toxicology or snake bite? It just sounds like you need someone’s full attention not some overworked e.r. Dude.

  36. 36.

    the Conster

    Nutjobs kind of sense they’ve lost the argument and they’re being passed by, and that the angry white guy thing is a thing that even the angry white guys are starting to perceive the contours of, but because they know they will never get consent to enforce their world view on the change they see around them, they think they can bully and intimidate by waving their dicks guns around. It’s the last gasp of a fading paradigm, and it ain’t pretty.

  37. 37.

    Violet

    @Roger Moore: Yep, the survival seeds are a sure tell that it’s about fear and not about guns. It’s all about “protecting themselves”. Why do they need to do that and the rest of us don’t? Because they’re afraid.

  38. 38.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I’ve heard that stat too. The average person who owns any guns owns about five, or something like that. So, you’re not completely surrounded by nutjobs, but the nutjobs who are there are really nuts. Um, yay?

  39. 39.

    Southern Beale

    @Aimai: @schrodinger’s cat:

    I went to my regular GP doctor as soon as they opened this morning. He said it’s a localized allergic reaction. He didn’t see the stinger still in there and he said it’s not infected, it’s far too soon. I admit I’m concerned it seems to be getting worse, but I’ll wait it out over night and see if it’s better tomorrow. If not I can call my dermatologist and ask for a referral to a specialist.

    They said they’ve been seeing a lot of wasp stings in the past couple of weeks, serious ones. Something about the mild winter making wasp stings more virulent or something? I thought that sounded kinda crackpot to me, but what do I know. Hell, maybe they’re Africanized or something. Like those damn bees.

  40. 40.

    Violet

    @Aimai: I agree with this. Did you go to the ER or your regular doc? (Edit, I see you went to your regular doc.) If your regular doc, call in the morning and get a referral. The fact that it’s going up your arm and it’s now swollen is not a good sign.

    Do you have any of those Urgent Care clinics in your neck of the woods? They cost more than the regular ER, but they will also see you faster usually. I had to use one when I got some skin allergic reaction that went from “I’m fine” to “my throat is closing up and I can’t breathe”. They had me in and seen in about five minutes. It was covered under my insurance as an ER visit, so expensive, but not prohibitive. Keep it in mind if it gets worse tonight. If it’s going up your arm, you could have some kind of infection.

  41. 41.

    realbtl

    Both here and in the Kessler post there is talk of “loving” guns and I’m not sure what this is about. I really like motorcycles (I have 4 soon to be 5) but I would never say I love motorcycles.
    The use of the word love seems to pop up with disturbing regularity.

  42. 42.

    Breezeblock

    I want to know why those fucking nutcases aren’t in the military. UNLESS, the military knows something….

  43. 43.

    burnspbesq

    Generalfeldmarschall Klinsmann once again deploys the model LD-10 drone against defenseless Central American civilians.

    I’m sure mclaren was appalled by the carnage.

  44. 44.

    Violet

    @Southern Beale: How many stings did you end up having? Did it sting you multiple times like you thought?

    Just keep an eye on it. You’re not alone, are you? Make sure any family members are aware they need to keep an eye on your for any changes in your behavior. Benadryl can make you woozy and you might not be the best judge of how you’re acting if you’re taking it.

  45. 45.

    Heliopause

    why is it the people who most love guns are always the people who should never, ever, ever be around a firearm

    Why is it the people who most love God are the ones who should be kept away from the Old Testament? Why is it the people who most love pizza are the ones who should be kept away from pizza? Why is it the people who most love sex are cute young college girls who haven’t the slightest interest in middle-aged men? Okay, that last one doesn’t quite fit with the others. Skip that one.

  48. 48.

    cokane

    It’s alot of things. I mean some are responsible reasonable owners who just want to own a weapon in the home.

    But for some it’s a collector thing no different than stamps or cars for some. Some like to own a gun from every war or some like to own an arsenal of the most high powered shit they can afford. They’re status symbols.

    But for many people, especially men, it’s the cocksure assurance that you can start shit with anybody without having to suffer any real consequences. Basically the Zimmerman syndrome.

  49. 49.

    Nerdlinger

    @schrodinger’s cat: Gun ownership in homes is down quite a bit. Gun ownership in general is middling, according to Gallup polls.

    http://themonkeycage.org/2012/07/21/the-declining-culture-of-guns-and-violence-in-the-united-states/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20themonkeycagefeed%20%28The%20Monkey%20Cage%29

    @Violet: Some do. My idiot neighbor literally fondles his on a daily basis. You should see the way he goes about polishing and shining that damn thing, like some sort of Faberge egg.

  50. 50.

    Redshirt

    What about if Zombies rise? Then the gun nuts will be the only people left, and they will re-populate the earth with their twisted spawn.

    The living will envy the un-dead.

  53. 53.

    Spaghetti Lee

    Well, you know, I can sort of see fear as a guiding motivation. With the state of the economy, the likely-gruesome economic fate of the middle class, the same shit already happening to the poor, global warming and the associated disasters, increasing dependence on technology that most people don’t really understand, the death of personal privacy, credit bubbles, real estate bubbles, oil prices-fear seems like a perfectly understandable response. Maybe not the best response, but a understandable one. I personally have a hard time lots of days seeing a good future 10 or 20 years from now.

    Where they lose me is the idea that buying enough guns to stock a small army will see them through. They’re not simply hoping to ride out the storms and surviving on what they have-guns don’t do that. Guns are weapons that help you take what other people have, be it money or property or life. People who are really, truly afraid of society collapsing and being forced back into subsistence farming and local economies, they should be buying seeds, water, generators, alternate fuel sources, dry goods, and so forth. Anything except guns, really. Seems to me like ‘fear’ is a dodge, and what they really have is hope-hope that society collapsing will mean that only the strong and cruel will survive, and them thinking they’d be perfect for a world like that.

  55. 55.

    Yatsuno

    @Southern Beale: I don’t know if it helps, but when I would get cortisone shots in my back, they usually took about 24 hours to go into effect. Of course I also got a nice anaesthetic to go along with so that definitely assisted some things there.

  57. 57.

    gbear

    @Heliopause:

    Why is it the people who most love pizza are the ones who should be kept away from pizza?

    I will give up my pizza when they pry it from my fat greasy fingers.

  58. 58.

    Southern Beale

    OK so now I see the Mark Kessler video was already FP’d over here shoulda known. Go away for an hour to eat dinner and this is what happens….

  59. 59.

    burnspbesq

    @gbear:

    The right of the people to be secure in their pizzas, burgers, wings, and ribs, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated

  60. 60.

    Southern Beale

    @Yatsuno:

    Thanks I’m hoping that’s what’s happening with me.

    My GP is very conservative with the meds, he’s not always shoving pills at me — that’s what I like about him. But damn, I want some results!!!

  61. 61.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @Southern Beale: I had to force my mother to go to the emergency room when she was stung by a yellowjacket lots of years ago and had a similar reaction. She ended up staying in the hospital for two days.

    Don’t make me come back to Nashville for you.

  62. 62.

    Baud

    @burnspbesq:

    The right of the people to be secure in their pizzas, burgers, wings, and ribs, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated

    Until the NSA decides to collect everyone’s meta-pizza.

  63. 63.

    Southern Beale

    In our house it’s:

    Why is it the people who most love the remote control are the ones who should be kept away from the remote control? {glares at spouse]

  64. 64.

    max

    WASHINGTON — A deeply divided House defeated legislation Wednesday that would have blocked the National Security Agency from collecting vast amounts of phone records, handing the Obama administration a hard-fought victory in the first Congressional showdown over the N.S.A.’s surveillance activities since Edward J. Snowden’s security breaches last month. [P]The 205-to-217 vote was far closer than expected and came after a brief but impassioned debate over citizens’ right to privacy and the steps the government must take to protect national security. It was a rare instance in which a classified intelligence program was openly discussed on the House floor, and disagreements over the program led to some unusual coalitions.

    How could anyone be upset about a de facto repeal of the 4th Amendment? Gosh. All the important people love the idea! (Since they have expensive lawyers.)

    On Wednesday, James L. Jones, the retired Marine Corps general who was Mr. Obama’s national security adviser from 2009-2010, added his name to an open letter in support of preserving the N.S.A. programs that had been signed by more than half a dozen top national-security officials from the Bush administration.

    Because when you want advice about national security, the place to turn is former officials of the Bush administration. Their track record with foreign policy was so outstanding.

    Ultimately, 94 House Republicans defied their leadership; 111 Democrats — a majority of the Democratic caucus — defied their president. [P] “This is only the beginning,” Mr. Conyers vowed after the vote. The fight will now shift to the Senate, where longtime critics of N.S.A. surveillance Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado, and Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, immediately took up the cause.

    max
    [‘It would’ve passed without leadership arm-twisting from both sides.’]

  67. 67.

    the Conster

    @efgoldman:

    The unconscious will not be denied. They know they’ve lost in that unconscious, dangerous way where the viscera overrides the intellect, and the synapses work best in the trigger finger. The relationship and between guns and cocks and men are so deeply Freudian it’s ridiculous.

  68. 68.

    johnny aquitard

    @PeakVT: @PeakVT: This.

    I own guns, several of them. And I’m ok with the US regulating them like the Australians or the British do. In fact I want them to be.

    Whatever pleasure I derive from owning and shooting them isn’t worth the drawbacks we have now seen occur on a regular basis to our society.

    I have owned guns for more than 30 years, and I have always wondered if the damage they can inflict outweighs any benefit they could possibly bring. I don’t wonder any more. Guns everywhere, for everyone, all the time is crazy.

    I do not consider keeping the government in check to be a realistic benefit. See NSA total information awareness, the Patriot Act, habeas corpus and guantanamo, and yes, drones. That ship has sailed. If you want accountability from your government, then vote.

    Guns seem to bring out the worst in certain people. They attract the fearful like a flame attracts moths.

    In my experience most gunnits are bigots currently fearful and obsessing over their crumbling hetero white-centric world. And they are often paranoid, which by my definition is they fear things which are unreasonable and exist only in their imaginations.

    You can be a white bigot and not be paranoid , but it is mostly the paranoid white bigots who are clinging tightly to their guns right now.

  70. 70.

    Yatsuno

    Ugh. Started reading an article on Aqua Buddha at TNR. Had to stop it was making me gag so hard. Most folks have to pay for blowjobs like that.

  71. 71.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @Baud:

    John Schnatter will speak out and be forced into exile in Russia. Then all the Papa John’s stores will be replaced with actual decent pizza, and his sacrifice will be well worth it.

  72. 72.

    greennotGreen

    Can you be off topic in an open thread?

    I thought about commenting when John was sad that Lily freaked out when she saw his walking stick. I don’t know that it means she’s been beaten with a stick before, just that she has somehow associated a stick with something scary or unpleasant.

    Today I was in the living room (a no-dog zone) cutting cardboard with a guillotine-style paper cutter. On the other side of the door, my silky terrier was losing it, and every time I cut, he tried to come through the door – for what purpose, I’m not sure. Yes, he’s been neutered, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t use a paper cutter. Somehow, that sound alarmed/enraged/overstimulated him.

    So, it may not be that Lily was beaten; she could be gun shy and the stick reminded her of a rifle. Or maybe she accompanied a former owner fishing and the moment he got out his fishing rod there was a huge clap of thunder. We don’t know. We only know she needs to learn that the walking stick isn’t threatening – in fact, it means totally fun walkies!

    Here’s to a happy, confident Lily.

  73. 73.

    Roger Moore

    @johnny aquitard:

    And no, I do not consider keeping the government in check to be a realistic benefit.

    Nobody with a decent grasp of reality does, either, and nobody with a good grasp of history believes that the Second Amendment was written with the idea that individual gun owners would defend freedom by rising up against federal tyranny. The idea behind the Second Amendment is that a standing army is the greatest threat to freedom*, and the only practical alternative to a large standing army was a militia.

    *A viewpoint that has been dramatically validated by the success of Costa Rica.

  74. 74.

    gbear

    @the Conster:

    The relationship and between guns and cocks and men are so deeply Freudian it’s ridiculous.

    You can throw ‘loud pipes’ in there too.

  75. 75.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @max:

    That actually makes me feel kind of hopeful. I would not have guessed, if you had me guess a random number, that almost half of the House would vote for repealing the NSA’s power to collect phone records. I would have guessed maybe 100 or so.

  76. 76.

    burnspbesq

    @max:

    Did you actually read what was voted on? Do you really think it was the best possible solution to the problem?

    I did, and it’s not. It’s a miserable piece of shittly drafting whose ambiguities would have actually caused more problems than we have now.

    Is “do something, even if it’s something stupid” really your position?

  77. 77.

    Fort Geek

    My batshit insane stepbrother used to walk the property line in front of his mother’s house toting either a loaded 12-gauge or a loaded hunting rifle. He would glower at anyone passing by and yell at them to get off his street.

    Once the guns were FINALLY taken away by my spineless stepfather, he took to toting a freaking sledgehammer, tire iron, or whatever club-like weapon around. Good times, good times.

  79. 79.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Southern Beale: If you don’t see results in the morning go to a teaching hospital. You’re in Nashville? Vanderbilt has a good medical school. Seriously.

  80. 80.

    Aimai

    @Southern Beale: I had an unexpected reaction to penicillin years ago. After having taken it for many years I suddenly became allergic to it. I spent a scary night wondering whether I should go to the e.r. My doctor told me the next day that I should not have debated. I just should have gone. Stings, allergies, anaphylactic shock ard just that fast moving and dangerous.

  81. 81.

    Yatsuno

    @Roger Moore: Realistically, our military gets renewed every two years because Constitutionally they cannot exist for a greater period of time than that. I think that was threatened once and didn’t go over well.

  84. 84.

    mai naem

    @Southern Beale: Get a permanent marker and mark lines where it’s swollen to. That way, you’ll know tomorrow if its getting better or not. Chances are you are not going to remember where exactly its swollen to.

  88. 88.

    Anne Laurie

    @Southern Beale:

    They said they’ve been seeing a lot of wasp stings in the past couple of weeks, serious ones. Something about the mild winter making wasp stings more virulent or something? I thought that sounded kinda crackpot to me, but what do I know. Hell, maybe they’re Africanized or something. Like those damn bees.

    A mild winter means you will have more wasps, and they will be in better shape (& in my experience the healthier the wasp, the crankier).

    The other thing, if you have any seasonal allergies at all, the mild winter means your immune system has been on high alert longer and more intensely than usual. As I understand it — and I am not a doctor, just a sufferer — all that histamine sloshing around can cause more inflammation for less reason, which is why they tell us to take our meds even when it’s not officially Allergy Season.

    Which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t visit your local Urgent Care facility, if things don’t improve (or goddess forbid, get worse).

  91. 91.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    A good friend of mine is the perfect gun owner (IMO). A Navy veteran, he collects them as an investment (has about 60 now) and he just loves the history of weapons. He doesn’t hunt (just target shoots), he buys/sells/trades with respectable shops/traders, safely stores his weapons in another secured location (not his home), an ex-NRA member (dropped out in 1997), is for good gun laws to keep weapons out of the hands of felons, agrees with magazine size limits, a solid Democrat and thinks that the gun lobby, Republicans and the Tea Party are insane.

    So there are some responsible gun owners out there but unfortunately, damned few like this guy.

  93. 93.

    Suzanne

    @Yatsuno: I think I am alone in finding Aqua Buddha totally boring. I feel like I went to high school with him and ten thousand of his clones. I find it hard to muster any outrage when he says offensive shit, because I instantly think, “Don’t worry, when you go to your reunion, he’ll be forty pounds overweight and driving a FedEx truck.” I then have to remind myself that he is not, in fact, any one of my uneducated Libertarian classmates.

  94. 94.

    Chris

    @johnny aquitard:

    I do not consider keeping the government in check to be a realistic benefit.

    I’ve said many, many times that if the U.S. ever went totalitarian, the NRA types wouldn’t be the heroic Wolverines taking up arms against the regime. They’d be the neighborhood Snatcher squads helping the regime hunt down Undesirables. The way the militias freaked out over nothing but status quo during the Clinton and Obama years while ignoring or cheering on a massive expansion of the security state during the Bush years would tend to say that I’m right.

    More generally: an autocratic government can’t take power unless it has enough of the public and the people with guns on its side. If you’re at the point where the state is sending black bag teams to your home and you’ve exhausted all defenses against them other than your personal firearms, you’ve already lost the war.

  95. 95.

    mclaren

    The Dunning-Kruger Effect. This has been another edition of Simple Answers To Simple Questions.

  96. 96.

    Redshirt

    @Chris: Yeah, this is my “all-too-realistic” nightmare. There’s some kind of terrible event(s), the Rethugs use it for political advantage, and unleash an army of angry armed white men to round up “undesireables”. Use religion for cover (a Holy Cleansing!) and it’s all too easy to imagine.

  97. 97.

    trollhattan

    Seriously, why is it the people who most love guns are always the people who should never, ever, ever be around a firearm, let alone dozens of them?

    Well you see, son, sometimes when a man and his ammo love one another very, very much….

    Also, too, new Fiona Apple video, directed by a dude with three names (Paul Thomas Anderson).
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG1VVFfOnYQ

  98. 98.

    johnny aquitard

    @johnny aquitard: You guys want a trip to the freak side, just google ‘prepper’ or ‘bugout bag’ or ‘survival gear’.

    Invariably you will see comments about ‘SHTF’ (shit hits the fan) involving zombies which is the new code to refer to negroes, the poors, the homeless and the hungry, TEOTWAWKI scenarios (the end of the world as we know it), weapons as a key component of your 72-hour bag (because as we all know after the tornado or earthquake hits we all expect to be looted by marauding dark-inner-urban gangs instead of asking our neighbors if they’re all right and helping out to remove the debris), the debate between the AR15 and the 12 gauge pump shotgun as the best survival weapon, and the constant nagging of however many mags of ammo they can stuff into the bugout bag they are fearful it’s not enough.

  99. 99.

    Suzanne

    The thing I find most ironic is that most of the pro-gun people I meet seem to be 100% in favor of the death penalty. The people who purport to fear governmental intrusion into their lives the most have no problem with giving the government the power to, you know, KILL THEM.

  100. 100.

    trollhattan

    @Suzanne:
    Definitely not alone on this one. If he’s a star, the star is fashioned of dark matter. Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, same thing, only fashioned a little differently–hyperactive high school debate teamers. Not the team captains, mind, just the motormouths you’d occasionally have to “debate” (get in word, edgewise).

  101. 101.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Chris:

    If you’re at the point where the state is sending black bag teams to your home and you’ve exhausted all defenses against them other than your personal firearms, you’ve already lost the war.

    Not even black bag teams. An armed force with a technology that can drop a Tomahawk down the airshaft of an apartment building from a thousand miles away, or can hit one specific car driving down the highway in Yemen from who-knows-where without setting foot in the country is an armed force that certainly doesn’t spend any time worrying about what I may have in my gun safe.

  102. 102.

    anubis bard

    I grew up among hunters and I’ve inherited a few pieces – my grandmother’s deer rifle, my great great grandfather’s shotgun, a beat up civil war musket and so on. I’ll get around to firing them someday. But to me the big divide is between the people on the one hand who hunt and shoot at targets and appreciate a well-designed firearm – and those on the other hand who think guns are for firing at other people – whether because you fantasize yourself some sort of hero or because you fear other people (because they might just be as crazy-nasty as yourself?) I understand the one type, but the other type mostly just disgusts and scares me.

  103. 103.

    Yatsuno

    @Suzanne: I really don’t understand his appeal on any level. He’s not very intelligent, doesn’t write worth a damn, coasted into office with his father’s followers lighting his path, and has done zero legislation to his name. The only notable thing was TEH FILIBUSTER!! and he ended up contradicting that not 24 hours later. I know political careers have been built on less, but I think at some point he actually has to do something in order to advance at all. Otherwise he’s peaked out as the junior Senator from Kentucky.

    (I just realised if the turtle loses he becomes the senior Senator. I just threw up in my mouth a little.)

  104. 104.

    Suzanne

    @trollhattan: YES. The kind of overly eager yet overly angry fuckwad who showed “lots of promise” but didn’t have enough discipline to stay in college more than a semester when his mom wasn’t around to do his laundry, but always found lots of time for video games. And then, after dropping out, never let that lack of education inhibit his ability to form an opinion.

  105. 105.

    johnny aquitard

    @Suzanne: They have no problem with the government forcing religious instruction in our schools, as long as it’s their religion. Nor with govermnent intrusion, literally, into women’s bodies. Nor with armed guards in every school. Or in our bedrooms.

    They tell us they fear a police state but that is exactly what they seek.

  106. 106.

    Suzanne

    @Yatsuno: I’ve had that same thought in my state. If Grandpa McCain retires, loses, or dies….JEFF FLAKE will be the senior senator. God have mercy on us all.

  107. 107.

    LeftCoastTom

    @mai naem:

    He said he didn’t care about race and actually didn’t care if there were blacks on the jury.

    I was prepared to snark on the Defense Attorney, given that Wikipedia tells me Sanford, FL is 30% African American. With a jury of 6, random chance would call for 2 black jurors. However…I’d have to guess the actual jury pool was from the county (Seminole), and Wikipedia tells me that county’s AA population is either 11% or 9%, depending on whether I’m looking at the page for Sanford or Seminole…in either case, a mostly white jury (80+% white for Seminole) would be expected.

    In some ways this makes me think the ‘Sanford Discriminated Against Jackie Robinson’ posts at the GOS are misplaced – Sanford may or may not have changed (look at Oakland, CA – sometimes the police department is the last place to get the ‘respect people regardless of race’ message), but maybe the relevant question is whether the Orlando Area has changed.

  110. 110.

    Yatsuno

    @Suzanne: I’d take it if it meant Grandpa Walnuts was retired to one of his seven houses. I’m starting to think the erratic behaviour he’s exhibiting is because he knows he’s not running again so he’s saying fuckitall. And just maybe Carmona can get his butt in there.

    If it helps, you’re not the only blue folk in Maricopa county. Quite a few folks I went to college with are also around those parts.

  111. 111.

    Davebo

    John,
    Sorry to hear about Tunch. But keep it in perspective. Trust me, there are much worse losses to be had.

    I had the worst earlier this month which is why I didn’t send condolences on the relevant thread.

    Hang in there kiddo!

  112. 112.

    gbear

    @LeftCoastTom: I thought that the jury issue was that only white people were uninformed enough to have never heard about the case on the news. All of the black people knew a whole lot about the case and were dismissed.

  113. 113.

    Gex

    In my family the guy with the conceal and carry license is the guy with an alcohol problem, an anger problem, and when he was younger, molested his sister. I guess when you are your own proof that horrible people are out there, it sort of just works out this way.

  116. 116.

    johnny aquitard

    @Roger Moore: No shit. But every damned gunnit I know mentions this as the real reason for private ownership of firearms. It’s bogus, but they arent honest about history, or their own motives.

  117. 117.

    mai naem

    @LeftCoastTom: The guy said the prosecutor actually struck a black juror from the jury pool. I also was listening to a woman from The Root who said there’s a lack of black jurors who show up for jury duty period so obviously it makes it even harder to find a black juror.
    @Suzanne: I’ve said this before. I think Rand Paul is only in it for the grifting. If he actually wins the presidency, it’ll be a huge cherry on the cake but he makes big $$$ off the grifting. I read that his extended(incl. his wife’s family) family is involved in the grifting – the newsletters, the swag etc. It’s a family business. Ron Paul has, I am not kidding, a non accredited freaking online high/grade school. Amazing he didn’t homeschool his own kid or send him to non accredited schools.

  118. 118.

    lojasmo

    I love how one of your facebook friends used HST, who committed suicide with a firearm, as an example.

  120. 120.

    Robin

    Asked and answered! Who loves screwdrivers? Guns are tools, anyone who feels love for them has something missing from their psyches.

  121. 121.

    Ruckus

    @Chris:
    I asked someone on here once if they thought an unorganized group of fat old men and overly testosteroned 25 yr olds could take on the US military. Or that any other country that might attack us on the ground would be at all worried about the same idiots. Didn’t get an answer. Because that’s not what they are worried/scarred about.

  122. 122.

    Yatsuno

    @Ruckus: One division of Marines could take out every citizen militia in the US and be home in time for dinner and pohker. They’d probably rotate if to alleviate boredom. Hell I’d be amazed if any broke a sweat.

  123. 123.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Robin: Actually there are people, perhaps fewer, who fetishize tools of various kinds, be they Japanese saws, very expensive chef’s knives, old film cameras, fly rods, you name it. Or so I hear.

  125. 125.

    Roger Moore

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:

    So there are some responsible gun owners out there but unfortunately, damned few like this guy.

    I bet there are more like that guy than there are real crazies. It’s just that responsible gun owners don’t wind up in the news for their gun ownership nearly as often as irresponsible or crazy ones do. It only takes a tiny fraction of gun owners being incompetent, crazy, and/or evil to give guns and gun owners a terrible reputation.

  126. 126.

    johnny aquitard

    @Chris: This. If sporting small arms are the only thing left that stands in the way, you’ve already lost. But the gunnits just do not get that. In fact they take it to justify no regs or restrictions on military crew served weapons. That’ll keep government restrained by fear and keep society polite!

  127. 127.

    Roger Moore

    @Robin:

    Who loves screwdrivers? Guns are tools, anyone who feels love for them has something missing from their psyches.

    If you think guns are the only tool in the world that people love and obsess over, you are sorely mistaken. I don’t love screwdrivers, but I do have some very strong opinions about wrenches, and I could spend hours boring you with details of different mass spectrometers I’ve worked with. I sincerely believe that a tendency to obsess over tools is part of our evolutionary adaptation to tool use, and that anyone who can use a tool seriously and not obsess over it has something wrong with them.

  129. 129.

    LeftCoastTom

    @Roger Moore:

    I sincerely believe that a tendency to obsess over tools is part of our evolutionary adaptation to tool use, and that anyone who can use a tool seriously and not obsess over it has something wrong with them.

    Are you trying to start another Mac vs. PC flamewar? And if so…how’s Windows 8 working out… :-)

  130. 130.

    Ruckus

    @Roger Moore:
    I take umbrage with that point of view. I have over the years spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for tools and I don’t obsess over any of them. They are exactly that, tools. I have used them to produce other tools and service products. I care if they get damaged or stolen, I paid good money for them and I used/use them. For decades. I wondered how it is that some of them were so amazing. But I just used them for their purpose. My tools are organized just enough to fit in my tool boxes but I don’t wipe them down and have cutouts in the boxes for them to fit in. A drawer for this and drawer for that so I can find what I need but no more. But maybe I’m the odd man out here.

  132. 132.

    Roger Moore

    @LeftCoastTom:

    Are you trying to start another Mac vs. PC flamewar?

    No, I’m entirely serious. If you use a tool seriously, you’re talking about thousands of hours of interaction. If you can put that much time into using something and not have a strong opinion about it, there is something wrong upstairs. There’s an old saying that it’s a poor tradesman who blames his tools, but that’s because it’s a poor tradesman indeed who equips himself with blameworthy tools. People who care take the trouble to get tools that are worthy of their skills.

  136. 136.

    kuvasz

    The next time some guy starts talking about his “guns” suggest to him that penis enlargers cost less than a Glock, nor have the latter’s reputation of misfiring.

  138. 138.

    ? Martin

    Gun nuts are cowards, and when you present a gun in place of courage, dangerous and unpredictable things happen.

  139. 139.

    mclaren

    @burnspbesq:

    The right of the people to be secure in their pizzas, burgers, wings, and ribs, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.

    No, according to you and countless other legal “experts,” the AUMF invalidates all those rights.

  140. 140.

    Jack

    I got rid of my guns when I actually aimed at someone, in the States. Think Walter in the bowling alley.

    “This ain’t Nam,this is bowling, there’s rules.”

  141. 141.

    Ruckus

    @Redshirt:
    Tools using tools to make tools.

    Top that.

    And I take umbrage with your insinuation that I’m a tool. I’m done worn out too far to be a tool.
    Anymore.

  142. 142.

    valdemar

    By the same token, people who obviously love power for its own sake shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near it.

  143. 143.

    Mike D.

    Because sane people know that getting a gun not needed for hunting or sport shooting makes your life a little bit worse, and could make your life unthinkably horrible.

  144. 144.

    zootu

    The paradox of gun ownership:

    If you want to own a gun, you are psychologically unqualified to own a gun

  145. 145.

    jake the snake

    @jheartney:

    As much as I respect Asimov, he was incorrect here. It would be much more accurate to say the violence is the last resort of the competent, but is the first resort of the incompetent.

  146. 146.

    jake the snake

    @Linda Featheringill:
    My sister claims that there are two things that she is glad that we didn’t know when we were kids. The first being that we were poor, and the second being that we were weird.

  147. 147.

    Sandman

    Hello … long time listener, first time caller … I also consider myself in the “responsible gun owner” category. I grew up fearing them, an artifact of my hippie upbringing, but after a decade and a half in the Army Reserve I was able to replace that fear with healthy respect. Fortunately, I never had to fire a live round at a live target while serving, and am perfectly happy to maintain that record.

    What gets me most about the militia/prepper/gun-fetishist crowd is how many times I’ve heard/read one of them talk about how they’re glad they have their guns in case they “have to” kill a liberal. When I press them on that point, about possible circumstances under which they’d “have to” kill a liberal, they’ve so far been silent.

    When they, in turn, ask me why I, child of hippies, own firearms, I tell them that it’s in case some methed-up Fudd decides that he “has to” kill him some liberals and ends up bouncing through my living room window.

    Two other things (among many) that annoy the hell out of me about the current firearms debate:
    1. Suggesting that there ought to be any sort of mandatory licensing, training, or safety features for firearms makes me “anti-gun,” but suggesting that cars ought to have seat belts and require a license doesn’t make me “anti-car.”

    2. I am sick to death for having to pay extra for firearms, ammunition, accessories, whatever because of the latest OBAMA GONE TAKE YUR GUNS scare. Nothing marks an easily-manipulated pussy like panic-buying and hoarding those items because some ironmonger or right-wing hateporn merchant put the Fear of a Non-Republican, Non-White Planet into him.

  148. 148.

    SpotWeld

    because it falls into three groups.
    1) people who don’t want a gun. They may or may not caused trouble, but very likely without a gun.
    2) People who want a gun, have one and understand the responcibility of owning one. They use the gun in a manner that is above all else, safe. This may mean they use it less, or in a less visable manner, but that’s okay since their ego isn’t on the line. The gun as a tool and as long as they’re using it well, they’re okay with that
    3) People who want a gun and invest thier ego into it. The gun is thier self-worth. It’s what makes them important, it’s why people listen to them. The gun must be there, it must be visable and it must be better! These people will disregard saftey because the gun *is* them and they will not be limited. This people, in short, cause problems and make it worse with firearms.

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