Pretty much unanimous in the replies that a drum like this is an ungainly, unreliable attachment in every or nearly every self-defense scenario. For amateurs who want to spray & pray til they're shot down.
The American, off-the-shelf, customer-warranty equivalent of a bomb vest. pic.twitter.com/JSIclZ50xm
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) August 4, 2019
That’s a version of the 100-round drum magazine that enabled the Dayton shooter to kill and injure so many people in under a minute. Think of it as a stylized totem to a particularly bloodthirsty god…
This from 2012 has held up pretty well. pic.twitter.com/MR0kLi9tyf
— DSA DNC Caucus (@agraybee) August 4, 2019
Garry Wills, in the NY Review of Books, “Our Moloch”:
… Adoration of Moloch permeates the country, imposing a hushed silence as he works his will. One cannot question his rites, even as the blood is gushing through the idol’s teeth. The White House spokesman invokes the silence of traditional in religious ceremony. “It is not the time” to question Moloch. No time is right for showing disrespect for Moloch…
It has the power to destroy the reasoning process. It forbids making logical connections. We are required to deny that there is any connection between the fact that we have the greatest number of guns in private hands and the greatest number of deaths from them. Denial on this scale always comes from or is protected by religious fundamentalism. Thus do we deny global warming, or evolution, or biblical errancy. Reason is helpless before such abject faith…
… Molochism is the one religion that can never be separated from the state. The state itself bows down to Moloch, and protects the sacrifices made to him. So let us celebrate the falling bodies and rising statues as a demonstration of our fealty, our bondage, to the great god Gun.
The Dayton gunman killed nine people and injured 26 IN LESS THAN ONE MINUTE. #DaytonShooting
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) August 4, 2019
This cartoon is not new.
What's so fucked up about America in 2019 is you don't even know which shooting this was after pic.twitter.com/FjhxrpVBya
— Mikel Jollett (@Mikel_Jollett) August 4, 2019
Charluckles
A sibling recently married into a family of gun worshippers. Our father was in the military and law enforcement so there were always weapons in our home growing up, but this is a whole different level. We recently visited them for a family reunion/party. One morning before most folks had arrived they had a shooting day. All the guns came out and they went over to the family range to shoot guns. I have no problem with this as long as it’s safe and responsible. But as I am walking through the house to go to the bathroom I pass an open bedroom door and notice that the bed is strewn with unsecured guns. There are kids running all over the house. I was livid, but kept my mouth shut. I just don’t think we will ever be visiting them again.
Patricia Kayden
And yet another shooting incident.
https://twitter.com/NBCNewYork/status/1158267182347890688
Not looking forward to Trump’s speech this morning. Hard pass.
prostratedragon
As I just said last thread:
Also, from Kieran Healy, “Rituals of Childhood”:
OzarkHillbilly
Blech.
prostratedragon
In Chicago, several outdoor gatherings of people were sprayed with gunfire, resulting in at least 4 killed and over 40 injured. Chicago Sun-Times
And on Friday, two women who were prominent activists in an anti-violence group were murdered in a drive-by shooting. Sun-Times
lofgren
In our movies, our constitution, and our national conversation, guns are always portrayed as the ultimate tool of justice. They are the irrefutable argument, the final word of the victimized man, the righter of wrongs, and the overthrower of tyrants. Of course the White man reaches for them when his proper role is not respected, when women refuse to date him, when Brown people get the privileges that should be his alone, or when his job goes to his lessers.
A Ghost To Most
Our Moloch is religion.
“Those who can make you believe absurdities,
Can make you commit atrocities.”
From Both Sides of the Pond
Here’s my thought today on the right to guns. The right to having a gun, the purpose behind it, is fundamentally, intrinsically different than nearly any other right we hold. If you read the philosophers who inspired our ideas on rights – Locke, etc. – there is no conception of owning weaponry as an inherent right of man. It was included in the Bill of Rights so that Americans as a collective body (well-regulated militia) had the capacity to defend the other rights – speech, religion, etc. – from those who would take it away. In short, it was a means, but not the end in and of its itself
But in the modern day, having that right vs. the government is practically meaningless. No Chairborne Ranger is going to hold out with his AR-15 against the military, or even any significant police special response unit. So if the right listed in the 2nd amendment is now useless for the preservation of other rights, what’s the point? And at what point does neglecting to regulate weapons by the government turn into an infringement of people’s first amendment rights by the government due to lack of providing protection for those rights from negligence in addressing a threat to public safety and order? The right to guns is ancillary to those that are part and parcel of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, and therefore secondary, wouldn’t you think?
PST
@From Both Sides of the Pond: Ancillary is precisely the right word. It was only a means to an end, and as a means of defending the fundamental rights from government infringement, it is an anachronism. For most of my life, I’ve been content to settle for advocating half measures, knowing that even those would be long shots. But now I would gladly vote to repeal the Second Amendment altogether.
Jeffro
@From Both Sides of the Pond: Good thought but too complicated for most.
How ‘bout “the guys who wrote the 2nd Amendment included the words ‘well-regulated’ as well as ‘right of the people’ and ‘shall not be infringed’, so…yup, it’s your right as long as it’s well-regulated. And here are your regulations, which were voted on by your duly elected representatives and signed into law…”
Mike in NC
We’re anchored off of a small fishing village called Ullapool in the Scottish Highlands. Doing some laundry and ironing and other mundane activities before going ashore this afternoon. Sun is shining and the weather is breezy but mild.
Feels like a million miles from Crazytown, USA.
Searcher
@Jeffro: Honestly, it keeps the spirit fairly well IMO.
The 2nd Amendment exists because the slavers who drove the Revolution for fear the British would take away their slaves wanted to have non-Federal Armies (militias) in case the Federal government ever tried to take away their slaves. Those slavers used it to that effect to start their third slaver rebellion, the Civil War, and they used it, in the form of militias like the KKK, before and after that war to perpetuate violence against minorities.
The second amendment is used today, without the well regulated part, to perpetuate violence against minorities (and women, who are technically a majority lumped in there) by the literal and spiritual descendents of those slavers.
It needs to be struck the way the other shameful parts of our constitution were.
Victor Matheson
I just got back from a month teaching in Bangalore, India. One very common question I got upon my return was, “What about crime? Weren’t you worried about safety?”
My answer was that in reality, for that month I had essentially no chance of being killed in an act of crime because there are no guns on the street, or even in the hands of cops. So, while my wallet was always in danger, as it is in any place with potential pickpockets, my life never was.
I also spent a day in a juvenile prison with roughly 50 inmates. I was told that by visiting that prison I had actually met every incarcerated juvenile criminal in the entire state of Karnataka, population 60 million. I am not sure whether something was lost in translation there, but astounding.
Another Scott
@Searcher: If one looks at the state constitutions, including those from near the US Constitution times, It’s complicated. E.g. Volokh:
Etc.
The 2nd Amendment is an anachronism and needs to be repealed or modified to make it clear that it’s a collective right subject to regulation.
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
@Mike in NC:
“Ironing…before going ashore this afternoon.” amazing. We have an ironing board, with stuff on it. Last time I used an iron it was to attach oak veneer to book shelves I made, looks pretty good if I do say so myself. Don’t iron clothes, much. On vacation? Just nope
But you’re having a great vacation, so it’s all good. ;-)
J R in WV
@Another Scott:
Floriduh:
Looks broken to me, after the US Constitution was repaired after the Civil War.