It seems like NRA spokes-ghouls used to follow a protocol after mass shootings. They’d clam up for 48 hours or so, then reemerge to tut-tut the “politicization” of the tragedy before suggesting more guns as a solution.
No more. Here’s NRA spokes-ghoul Dana Loesch cutting straight to the prescription from Dr. Death before the blood was even mopped up in Jacksonville:
So, either everyone is strapped for a shoot-out, Wild West style, or people who attend public events must enter a police state environment. Because God forbid that gun-humping weirdos who hoard weapons and stockpile ammo should be inconvenienced even half as much as a citizen who wants to vote.
BTW, the Jacksonville shooting took place at a video game conference that was being live-streamed. A video that captures the audio of the shooting is all over the media. I wish I hadn’t heard it. But it would be great if someone could hack the sound system at NRA headquarters and the GOP cloakroom and play it on continuous loop.
hueyplong
Thanks for the heads up about the audio. I now know to avoid clicking on pretty much anything forwarded to me for the next week or so.
I can still be fooled if the blue type says “Don Jr. granted immunity”
Mary G
Do a Cusack holding up the boom box outside Dana’s house. And Marion Hammer’s too.
HinTN
Oh, yes!
debit
@Mary G: Pretty sure they would just jerk off to it. Monsters.
dmsilev
It bears pointing out, again, that the NRA doesn’t allow guns to be carried inside their HQ. I presume, therefore, that they have diligent and fail-safe security measures in place.
Adam L Silverman
Actually gun free zone is a well established dog whistle among the “armed intelligentsia”.
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2018/08/daniel-zimmerman/sight-of-jacksonville-mass-shooting-is-a-designated-gun-free-zone/
hueyplong
@dmsilev: Odd, I like to assume that they don’t.
dmsilev
BTW, the random tag line generator just gave me ‘This is good news for John McCain’. Might be time to remove that one from the rotation.
Schlemazel
@hueyplong:
ABC was kind enough to play it between innings of the Little League World Series. That was a special treat for all the kids tuned in.
TaMara (HFG)
I’ve been (proudly) blocked by Dana Lush, but I hope someone posts the statistics of all the mass shootings where there were armed guards, starting with Columbine.
Schlemazel
@dmsilev:
Too soon
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman:
That’s an impressively vast leap of logic there.
efgoldman
@Schlemazel:
Je3ebus. That’s like playing airline commercials inside a newscast with the story of a major crash. Even my station wasn’t stupid enough to do that.
Repatriated
@dmsilev:
Yep. Geometric logic — the most inescapable kind.
Circles are geometric figures, right?
JPL
@Schlemazel: ugh.. Who won?
Baud
As everybody knows, everyone had a gun in the Old West and, as a result, very few people died.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: I just monitor this stuff, I don’t write it.
Cheryl Rofer
Also, in the information war, clearly Russian trolls or bots are doing the “You are heartless to call for gun control so soon…” thing.
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: I know, sorry for not making it clear I was posting an excerpt from the article you linked to.
suzanne
@Adam L Silverman: One of the genius commenters at that link suggests banning public gatherings. Their mindset would be funny if fewer people held it.
Yarrow
@hueyplong: Warning: CNN has played it as well, so it might be something you see and hear if you happen to be in the vicinity of a TV with cable news on it. Wonder how that’s going over in airports. Seems like a bad decision to play it.
SiubhanDuinne
@dmsilev:
I agree. It has given us many cheap laughs for nearly a decade, but now it’s time to retire that line.
Splitting Image
Is it too early to start assuming that the NRA’s real endgame isn’t eliminating restrictions on guns, but making the rest of the country embrace the idea that they ought to be surrounded by heavily armed paramilitary troops everywhere they go – on the assumption that right-wing authoritarian tools are the most likely to join said paramilitaries?
Or has it been perfectly obvious that this is the case for the last 20 years, and I’m just slow on the uptake?
JPL
@suzanne: What about grocery stores? I guess we are all going to have to use Amazon home delivery.
Dana Millbank received a note from an upset trumpette demanding to know where in the Constitution it says that a president has to be fit.
Steeplejack
@hueyplong:
An alleged “friend” forwarded me a Facebook link that led to a Photoshop of Trump as a Ferengi. Well done, but—eek, my eyes?!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@suzanne: So we just “shelter in place” ALL THE TIME?
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: I know. I was just being a smartass.
Schlemazel
@JPL:
Hawai’i 3-0
Both Korea and HAwai’i made some unbelievable plays. I cannot imagine 12 year olds being this good
suzanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Apparently. Because FREEDUMB.
Splitting Image
@SiubhanDuinne:
How about: “Donald Trump became President today”
Vince
@suzanne:
Those commenters are all a bunch of gun-humping assholes but that person is clearly being sarcastic. There is someone further down in the comments already claiming it’s a false flag and another person crying that liberals want to ban guns but want as many abortions performed as possible. Lovely people.
Schlemazel
@Baud:
They refuse to admit that most towns in ye olde west confiscated guns while people were in town. In fact the gunfight at the OK corral was a fight between the County Sheriff (Clantons) and the Tombstone Marshall because Earp demanded the ‘no guns allowed’ law be enforced against even the County deputies
Juju
I guess an angry white male was angry at other white males for a change. I’m sure there were women there, but the majority was probably white male.
chris
The saddest thing about this shooting is that if it weren’t for the Twitch video/audio it probably wouldn’t make the national news unless/until the body count is really high. One person was killed and three more were wounded in Texas early today and it’s just local news.
Happens every day. Do better,USA.
The Pale Scot
OT but therapeutic. I was looking for the new BBC radio show of HHTG’s 6th book. And came across the original series with Douglas Adams at the Archive.org
Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy Radio Show Full Series
I not sure how much longer I’ll be paying attention to the news. Same shit over and over again, nothing learned
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: I had some fun with Photoshop today, but I think my results* were much more pleasing.
*That’s the Milky Way over the Chinese Garden at The Huntington, the original shot of the garden was in daylight so it’s been converted to nighttime with lighting added and the Milky Way is from a shot taken in Gaviota.
JPL
@Schlemazel: I watched some of the Peachtree City/Hawaii game, and Hawaii was impressive. As a mom I really enjoyed watching boys in that age group play.
suzanne
@Vince: I interpreted it differently…..sounded to me like he suggested banning public gatherings if someone was playing video games, but I could be wrong. I don’t pretend to be an expert at parsing meaning in the comments of frothing crazy people.
JPL
@Splitting Image: NO
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: @suzanne: Also, both that article’s author and the commenters there don’t know what they’re talking about. The most that can happen in a commercial space in Florida that prohibits weapons is that they can ask you to leave. If you fail to leave, then you can be cited for trespass. That’s it. Here’s the actual list of places in Florida that you can’t legally conceal carry in.
https://www.freshfromflorida.com/Consumer-Resources/Concealed-Weapon-License/Possession-Restrictions
The asterisk for establishments licensed to dispense alcoholic beverages for consumption means that the establishment has to make more that 51% of its sales from alcohol. So restaurants are fine, though you can’t sit at the bar. You’re also not supposed to conceal carry if drinking/impaired. Places not on the list above that wish to prohibit weapons on their premises must post appropriate and prominent signage at the entrances, if all they do is have a bullet point on their website, then it doesn’t count.
Here’s the most recent update to Florida’s firearms laws.
https://www.floridafirearmslaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Update-April-2018-9th-ed.pdf
dmsilev
‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
(First posted ~4 years ago, and has been reposted several times since)
efgoldman
CBS led with a few seconds of the Jacksonville audio, followed by the first of the Grandpa Walnuts hagiography. Undeserved though it is.
Loomis goes a fit overboard in the other direction, but he fsks the idolatry pretty well.
It wasn’t Awe Lincoln for FSM’s sake.
efgoldman
@efgoldman: Argh no edit. a BIT overboard.
Juju
@The Pale Scot: Oh I loved that radio series. I used to listen to it weekly when it originally aired. The original Arthur Dent was the best. I’m glad he played the role in both the radio series and the BBC tv series. Best robe too.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman:
(This is my shocked face.)
Adam L Silverman
@Splitting Image: Gun normalization is an oft discussed issue among the 2nd Amendment absolutist crowd.
Schlemazel
@The Pale Scot:
I have the first two series audio saved. Listened to it while recovering from the last major surgery and it helped me remain sane. I do wish he had written other stuff without listening to the pendants who bitched endlessly about the timeline inconsistencies. It made the 3rd series unlistenable. I have read the “Long Dark Tea Time” and his ‘detective’ series and they are OK but he really was his best when he was destroying Earth
Steeplejack
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Nice.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: Thanks, I wasn’t sure how well it would work. I’m pretty happy with the results.
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack: He’s more properly understood as Larfleeze, the Orange Lantern aka Agent Orange.
http://greenlantern.wikia.com/wiki/Larfleeze
Adam L Silverman
@Juju: Early reports is that it was one of the players that had been eliminated.
Steeplejack
@efgoldman:
The Loomis piece gave me a welcome sense of closure. He did dial lit up to 11 in a few places, but by and large I agree with his take. He had all the receipts (with links) and provided a bracing corrective to the weepy, maudlin hagiography now flooding the TV.
debit
@Schlemazel: Are you a Discworld fan as well? And if so, have you listened to the audio books narrated by Tony Robinson? I normally hate audio books, but love these beyond all reason.
Adam L Silverman
@chris:
Fixed it for you.
Ruckus
@Yarrow:
I wonder if it might not have a boomerang effect. People have read the news reports but hearing an actual live shooting? I’d bet not as many people have heard that. Wasn’t a big turning point in the Vietnam war when you saw the bloodshed on the nightly news everyday? In the abstract a lot of people may not make the connection to themselves. Hearing/seeing it adds another dimension that I’d bet wouldn’t make them go out and buy a gun.
Schlemazel
@debit:
I have not ready any of them. But I will be 2 weeks in hospital recovering in a couple of months so I will look those up. I need to find stuff now because when I am that sick I want things that will comfort me & not annoy me.
Thanks for the suggestion
chris
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks, I guess. I’d mercifully forgotten that misbegotten phrase.
Schlemazel
@Ruckus:
A shocking event like the film of the curbside execution of a suspect by the CHief of Police for Saigon was upsetting to many. But the big change came when the media finally admitted the the war was a disaster & we were being lied to. ‘Uncle Walter’ coming back from his trip there and telling it like it was on CBS really broke the dam
sukabi
@Splitting Image: I’m holding out for either … Who knew rage tweeting causes strokes … POTUS loses Pecker over P0rn Star.
debit
@Schlemazel: Purists will advise that you start at the beginning of the series, but I jumped in with the one book Pratchett himself said not to (Lords and Ladies) and may have missed some in jokes but was otherwise fine. One stand alone book, Small Gods, is my favorite comfort read and recent re-read was just as satisfying as I’d hoped.
Sorry about the long recovery. Luckily, there are a lot of Discworld books and if you liked HGTTG, you should also like Pratchett’s style and humor.
Juju
@Adam L Silverman: He was angry about losing? Holy Moly!
Adam L Silverman
@Juju: That was what I saw in the early reports, but since those are usually not accurate, I decided not to do a post about it and wait to see what actually happened.
debbie
@efgoldman:
Saw the happy news below. Congratulations, Gramps!
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@debit: I started with Hogfather without any trouble. It probably helped that some of the jokes were current geek at the date of publication.
NotMax
@The Pale Scot
Yowza. Have the whole thing on reel to reel tapes made at the time. Terrific adaptation.
(Also have tapes of the ’81 NPR radio adaptation of Star Wars (the original movie) – 13 parts, 6 hours.)
Ruckus
@Schlemazel:
Not arguing at all but also the daily news reels of shooting and being shot didn’t help at all. And that’s what I’m talking about. For all the people shot and all the police shootings of unarmed people, most people really haven’t seen or heard an actual shooting. The movies for the most part downplay what wounds look like, how much blood is spilled. Being shot at, just hearing that gun go off is a lot different than the movies make it out to be.
debit
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: I loved Hogfather so much. Susan and her poker! Okay, I sense a full rereading binge coming on.
philpm
@Vince: The main reason they’re trying to claim false flag is the fact that a white guy was identified as the shooter. I’m surprised the NRA said anything at all about it, unless they issued their statement before that fact became known.
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: Just wondering if MSM has labeled his mentally ill yet? He is white after all.
Jay
@Schlemazel:
An image that was appropriated by the MIA-POW CT.
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/08/john-mccain-pow-mia-myth
And cynically used to prolong the war.
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: I haven’t been following the story too closely. I’ve been working on something, so checking in here between reading various source materials.
Juju
@Adam L Silverman: I hadn’t even heard that much. I wasn’t really paying attention to the news today. I figured it’s a Sunday, beyond the usual Trump hooey, what could possibly happen?
RinaX
It’s pretty surreal to have this happen 20 minutes away from me. It was a shock to turn on the TV after an afternoon of working in silence and realize this was going on.
Steeplejack
@Schlemazel, @debit:
I would note that there are several “subseries” in the Discworld saga—Sam Vines and the Night Watch; the witches; Rincewind, the hapless magician; Tiffany Aching; and Death—and I would suggest taking one of those and going through in order. Handy reading chart here.
The other thing I will note, as someone who binge-read almost all of the books about 10 years ago, is that each (sub)series takes a book or two to really catch fire. I attribute that to the fact that Pratchett was getting a handle on the whole Discworld enterprise while he was publishing the first books, jumping from topic to topic (which would later become the series), and it took him a while to get full control. But all the books are very enjoyable. And I agree with debit that Small Gods is a little masterpiece. That’s a one-off that you could read by itself.
The excellent Wikipedia article has a good list of the novels in chronological order and which subseries they belong to.
P.S. Crossing my fingers to see if four links will go through in the current state of the blog.
Kathleen
@efgoldman: Posted on dead thread downstairs (as is my wont) so I’m posting my congratulations to you and your family on the birth of your second grandchild. So exciting!!! (I know because I have 2 grandsons who are now (gulp) adults. The oldest is a “ginger”).
Thoughtful David
@Steeplejack: Yeah, the Loomis piece is my sentiments exactly. The media’s love for him is inexplicable, about the same as it is for the Kardashians.
evodevo
@Juju: I loved the BBC version – couldn’t get into the modern remake …
Schlemazel
@Ruckus:
Maybe I don’t remember it correctly but it seemed to be TV cleaned up a lot of stuff.
I didn’t mean to be as dismissive of your original comment, sorry I see it came off that way. I just remember people getting really het up about the guy having his brains blown out & again when Cronkite finally stated plainly the the war was not going well. But no doubt the constant barrage of combat footage undermined the “John Wayne” war hardon
Mike S
@The Pale Scot: Thanks for the link to the Hitchhiker’s Guide. I loved the radio version when it was first on NPR. I now be listening to it all again!
Schlemazel
@Steeplejack:
THANKS for the chart. I was just looking at my library site & bewildered by the number of volumes.
Schlemazel
@efgoldman:
HEY! Late to the party as always but congrats on the good news. Enjoy the hell out of grandparenthood!
MagdaInBlack
@Steeplejack:
Currently re-reading “Small Gods” and ” The Fifth Elephant” as diversion from current events. I have them all ?
TS (the original)
@Thoughtful David:
He’s a republican – what’s inexplicable
He’s not a Clinton – what’s inexplicable
He’s a white guy – whats inexplicable
Gelfling 545
@efgoldman: No, but the current crop of Republicans can make him SEEM like Lincoln.
Aleta
So easy for the internet to imply that ‘opened fire after he lost’ means ‘opened fire because he lost.’ A guy with a plan to shoot could plan to play until he loses, then shoot, then die himself. Planning out the sequence of steps isn’t unusual for these guys.
FlipYrWhig
@TS (the original): He’s a Republican who liked to tell risqué stories and dirty jokes on the campaign bus, who thought the other politicians tried too hard, and who didn’t talk your ear off about Jesus Christ. That’s pretty much a political reporter’s dream.
Schlemazel
@Gelfling 545:
Hell, the current crap of Republicans make McCain look like the Christ
The Pale Scot
Replies:
I haven’t read the later books, saving them for retirement /s I guess. The BBC adaptations are so forthright in their Yes We Don’t Have Buckus For a Budget, use your frigging imagination. And the actors just take over the story
Ruckus
@Schlemazel:
No worries. Didn’t take your comment in any other way than constructive.
Early on the coverage was raw. As fucking LBJ saw as the war drew on the nightly news coverage was making the war even more unpopular, so they restricted where the news crews could go. So the war once again didn’t look as bad. But reality hadn’t changed.
Matt McIrvin
@Adam L Silverman: Gun normalization, hell, they’re working on mass death normalization.
NJDave
@efgoldman: Thank you, thank you, thank you! I’ve viewed McCain as a vastly over-rated schmuck for years. But I don’t write as well as Loomis.
Brutusettu
And if everyone was armed, what’s the odds smaller arguments would turn into homicides?
Or that the murderer here, would still be able to get a magazine off regardless?
Uncle Cosmo
@efgoldman: Congratulations, Grumps!…..erm, Gramps….
“Grandchildren are your reward for not having murdered your children.” (And I’ll bet you can remember at least a handful of times when, at least to your I-had-one-nerve-left-&-you-just-stomped-on-it self at that moment, they richly deserved it…)
The Pale Scot
@NotMax:
Showoff!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Aleta:
In the Gamer Tard world anyone who wins against a Gamer Tard cheated. Why? Because all Gamer Tards are cheaters so project their own behavior on others. After that it’s a small step to gun fetishist Conservatard.