Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

In my day, never was longer.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

This fight is for everything.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

The revolution will be supervised.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

You are here: Home / Gun Issues / Armed fanatics in Virginia

Armed fanatics in Virginia

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Please stay safe, Virginians; armed fanatics are roaming around:

The other photos in reporters’ Twitter feeds are surreal. There’s an Info Wars armored vehicle rolling around too. It’s worth remembering what inspired these lunatics to intimidate their fellow citizens and attempt to cow lawmakers:

Three bills that will prohibit firearm possession in public spaces, limit monthly handgun purchases, and require background checks for firearm transfers passed the state Senate on Thursday, marking the first of stronger gun-control legislation proposed by the new Democratic majority in the General Assembly.

That’s it. There’s an exemption for transfer of firearms between family members, so there’s not even the excuse of opposing laws that impede the generational transmittal of grandpappy’s shootin’ arn.

For what it’s worth, I think the gun-humpers will lose this battle eventually. Allowing unfettered access to weapons that can kill dozens of people in under a minute just isn’t sustainable long term. The question is how much blood will be shed before sanity prevails. Here’s hoping none is shed today.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

118Comments

  3. 3.

    kindness

    I thought open carry was tossed by Emergency Executive Order today.  And these clowns are carrying anyhow?  I will really be looking to see how Law Enforcement explains this.

  4. 4.

    HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes

    Is it me, or does that guy’s scarf clash with his assault rifle in the pic on the right in that tweet.  I think grey or black would have been a better fashion choice.  Also, I love the “my God we’re actually talking with a real live woman” vibe of that pic.

  6. 6.

    FlyingToaster

    From up heah in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, I’m pretty damn terrified.

    In these parts, if you want to “open carry”, you have to be in uniform.  Period.  No exceptions, as gun humpers find out every time they come here and hotel parking surveillance sees the guns in their trunks.

    And you can get a gun permit in Massachusetts.  You just have to convince the local PD that you’re not dangerous to your neighbors, and belong to a gun or hunting club who can certify that you know how to use your weapon(s), and transport and store them safely.  Our PD has a lieutenant who will come inspect your gun lockup periodically, so that there’s no problem with permit renewal.

    Having people wandering the streets with AR-xx or Uzis is just fucking bonkers.

  7. 7.

    MattF

    This is just unavoidable, sadly. I haven’t seen any reports about what the NRA is up to… I guess they haven’t got much credibility, also they wouldn’t want to be visible if something ‘unfortunate’ happens. Unlike Infowars. So, hopes and prayers, and all that.

  8. 8.

    germy

    There’s an exemption for transfer of firearms between family members

    That loophole will be exploited grotesquely, I predict.

    “Son, I’m leaving you this arsenal in my will.”
    “We’re related?”
    “Shhh…”

  11. 11.

    Evil_Paul

    @kindness: They were only able to ban guns from the grounds of the Capitol Building, if I remember correctly. And even there they were hit with a Court challenge that they barely cleared.

  13. 13.

    cleek

    the fact that they come dressed up as soldiers for a one-hour march through a downtown area demonstrates pretty nicely how much of all this is cosplay for them.

     

    they’re 7yrold boys playing Army Man.

  14. 14.

    Booger

    Looks like groups of heavy, armed men. Spent Sunday in Richmond, went to the Fine Arts Museum…what a beautiful city to have to put up with these ambulatory turds. I hope they take a good look at this monument outside, which took me a triple take to get. Be safe RVA, they’ll be back in their parasitic red states once this is all over.

  15. 15.

    Evil_Paul

    @FlyingToaster: What are you talking about?  They’re in uniform!  Just look at the pictures!  Some of them probably spent months on Amazon looking for just the right accessories to make those uniforms perfect!

    …and the sarcasm just made me throw up a little bit in my mouth…

  16. 16.

    Bruce K

    @cleek:

    …how much of all this is cosplay for them…

    Most of the cosplayers I’ve encountered over the years would be righteously – and rightly – insulted by comparison to those gun fetishists.

  18. 18.

    germy

    I’ll be honest. My fear for Richmond tomorrow isn’t about a mass shooting. It’s that it will establish a pattern whereby Nazis can bully a legislature into adhering to its minority will.
    — Emily G (@EmilyGorcenski) January 20, 2020

  19. 19.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @kindness: Open carry is banned with in a *3 block radius* of the capital, not thru out the city. I think concealed carry too.

    ** iirc, might be more

  20. 20.

    waspuppet

    Just a reminder: Guns are NOT allowed on the Capitol grounds, where the actual protest is happening. So the pictures you’re seeing are of “men” who would rather not actually take part in the rally if it means separating themselves from their precious babies for a couple of hours.

    Also: My favorite sign so far is “VA DEMOCRATS: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.”

    Because you know, the decades of tightening gun control laws — wait, I mean the writing of a single bill — is just too much for their tender feelings.

  21. 21.

    Evil_Paul

    In the photo on the left, that douche nozzle’s got a go-pro strapped to his helmet, and he’s wearing ear defenders.

    Ready to film his own Christchurch massacre. Hope he overheats under all that gear and thunders in from dehydration.

  23. 23.

    JPL

    Ga Legislation loosens gun laws in response to mass shootings.   I’m not even sure there are any left to loosen.

  24. 24.

    JPL

    Last night in San Antonio someone killed two people inside a bar and injured another 5.   In Kansas City outside a bar there were fifteen shot, two dead and three in critical condition.    When are guns going to start making us safer.

  26. 26.

    Hungry Joe

    Wait till the United States Space Force starts issuing ray guns, and surplus stores start selling them.

    What’s the NRA’s position on ray guns, anyway? Do any of you know? This will be a huge deal in the 2024 election.

  27. 27.

    Raoul

    @MattF: I read an article this morning that said the NRA had their lobby day at the VA capitol last week. They complied with the no guns in the building law, did their constituent meetings, and left.

    I despise the NRA. But they are funded by the gun manufacturers, who are immoral but not moronic. They understand that today’s exhibition of stunted maturity + racism, sexism and pathetic inferiority complexes is counterproductive.

  28. 28.

    cope

    So this grand display of penile over-compensation just happens to be taking place on Martin Luther King Day.  Coincidence?

  32. 32.

    ruemara

    Home sick, with sick being the only major change in what I’ve been doing for 8 months. Just exhausted with the human species being completely stupid and eagerly anticipating the stupid die-off because a good 1/3 of humans are loud, dead weight preventing smarter ways of existing.

  33. 33.

    Bill Arnold

    They’re sort of smiling in that twitter pic, but I’m still not sure: are these good guys with guns, or bad guys with guns?
    Personally I’d stay at least 800 meters away.

  34. 34.

    Raoul

    @cope: The story is that it’s on MLK because it’s a day off for many people, but I guess not legislators.

    But, indeed, the message being sent is clear.

    Oh, and semi-off topic: Der Trumpenfarter has zero public activities on his calendar today, before flying off to Davos at 6:30 this evening. Not much could more perfectly encapsulate his seething hatred for diversity and inclusion more than staying silent on this day, and then jetting off to the global economic overlords conference.

    “It is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.” -MLK

  37. 37.

    Feathers

    @cope: In Virginia, it’s Martin Luther King/Robert E. Lee day. Or it least it was last time I lived there. Yes, they share a birthday.

  40. 40.

    Aimai

    Everyone waiting on them or selling them food should drop some fecal matter or salmonella in it and let them find out what second amendment remedies can/can not fix.

  41. 41.

    Jinchi

    @MattF: I haven’t seen any reports about what the NRA is up to

    Aren’t they on the verge of bankruptcy? I hate to say it but they probably think of this as a membership recruitment drive.

  44. 44.

    Feathers

    @Raoul: Hmm. The only sitting US president who went to Davos is Clinton, who went in 2000. It’s a bad look. We know Trump’s not getting a charity foundation set up, ‘coz he’s legally barred from doing so. So what sort of bribes is he trying to get for the harm he can do in the next year. Or maybe he’s looking for “election help,” and is realizing that corporations may be able to do more for him than governments can.

  45. 45.

    Elizabelle

    I think all these gun jackholes are accomplishing is stiffening Virginia Democrats’ and citizens’ spines against them.

    They are absolutely in Richmond to intimidate.  Other, peaceful groups are not able to participate in the traditional Lobby Day at the Virginia Legislature because these morons showed up.  Moms Demand Action has been advising its members to steer clear (or so I hear from a NoVA friend).

    Very disappointed to hear that Virginia Beach’s town council gave in to them recently.  Bad, bad, bad.  Do not let these paranoids and antisocial types intimidate you.

    Is this where we talk about “outside agitators?”

  47. 47.

    Elizabelle

    WaPost about Virginia Beach (and shame on you, City Council, shame).
    A tense debate over guns in Virginia Beach, still reeling from a mass shooting
     

    The gun owners crowded into the Freedom Shooting Center meeting room Friday night until it was jammed with 200 men and women wearing hunting camo, “tyranny” T-shirts and Trump gear.

    …  In the wake of the November election, gun rights advocates began flooding city and county hearings across the state to demand they declare themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries.”

    Nowhere has the state’s sudden and intense gun-control debate been more fraught than in Virginia Beach. Less than eight months after engineer DeWayne Craddockopened fire on his co-workers in a municipal building, the state’s largest city is still struggling to recover.

    “VBStrong” stickers have given way to dueling pro- and anti-gun-control signs. Campaign ads mentioning the tragedy have angered some victims’ families. And even survivors of the shooting have been drawn into the tense political debate.

    “We don’t even have a scar yet,” Virginia Beach City Council member Aaron Rouse said of the city’s wound. “It’s still very fresh.”

    Rouse opposed a resolution declaring Virginia Beach’s support for the Second Amendment because he felt it was too soon to raise such a divisive issue. After an estimated 1,500 gun rights advocates overwhelmed three recent hearings in support of the resolution, however, the controversial measure narrowly passed, upsetting local gun-control advocates. [Vote was 6-4.]

    “It’s really disheartening and disrespectful to the families of the victims that our city council would vote on this less than a year from the mass shooting,” said Sibel Galindez from the local chapter of Moms Demand Action. “Often the gun rights crowd talks about not politicizing a mass shooting. Well my goodness, what a slap in the face.”

  49. 49.

    jonas

    Why would hundreds of grown men want to publicly advertise in a state capitol the fact that they have small dicks and are insecure about it?

  51. 51.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Steeplejack (phone): The odd thing (and I saw that picture a couple of days ago, and have been trying to figure out things since) is that Lev is only nine years older than Ivanka. He was born in 1972, she in 1981. If that’s a 10th birthday (and I’ve not been able to successfully count the candles) he’s 19 years old. It’s not likely an 11th birthday, since DJT and Ivana divorced in 1992.

    So DJT is, say, 45, with three kids, fairly wealthy, and invites some 19-year-old junior sales guy who was hired by his Dad to his precious daughter’s birthday? Just weird all the way around.

  53. 53.

    Elizabelle

    It was a long article in the WaPost:  more on Virginia Beach:

    “How many of you guys are going to Lobby Day?” [gun nut Brendan] Mooney asked the gun owners at the Freedom Shooting Center meeting Friday night. Almost everyone in the room raised their hand. Half stayed up when the Navy veteran asked if it was their first time.

    “Obviously, this Lobby Day is going to be a little different,” he said to laughter, “because we might have 100,000 show up instead of 1,000.”

    A day earlier, the Virginia Senate had passed three bills that would require background checks on all firearms purchases, let localities ban weapons from certain events and government buildings, and cap handgun purchases at one per month. A “red flag” bill allowing law enforcement to temporarily remove guns from individuals deemed a risk to themselves or others had passed out of committee but was not voted on.

    The state was trying to turn ordinary gun owners into criminals, Mooney warned.

    “As you have seen from the bills written, they will try and turn everyone in this room into a felon overnight if possible,” he said.

    Mark Ashley agreed. He had joined VCDL, he said, after the election when it became clear that Democrats were pursuing gun control. He knew the mass shooting had shaken his city.

    “Lots of people lost family members or friends,” he said, “but just because that happens doesn’t mean you can take away somebody’s rights.”

     

    I wish they would all just shoot each other to smithereens and be done with it.  Let them eat their own metal. We cannot have a civil society with these irrational people walking around with guns.  It’s our country too.

    Fuck ’em.

    The WaPost article is really worth a click, if your blood pressure can take it.

  55. 55.

    lurkypants

    @Raoul: It’s Lobby Day, when people of all sorts have access to their legislators at the beginning of the session.

    Except today, it’s going to be single-issue lobbying, and only one side will be represented.

    BTW, open carry is legal in VA, which is why these assholes can wander around outside the emergency zone armed to the teeth.  I’m hoping they don’t know Richmond very well and decide to stay where the cameras are rather than wander off to nearby VCU and Black neighborhoods.

  58. 58.

    Feathers

    @Elizabelle: What I’m hoping is for local governments to start reining in their police departments. Even in places where the vast majority of the people don’t think the police should be able to get away with garbage, the cops think they are above the law. They are entrenched, but they need to be put on notice.

  59. 59.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @cleek: They are 7 year olds playing Army men with real guns and real bullets.  And this reminds me of the old Gun Fail threads on DailyKos, documenting all the people who accidentally shot themselves or someone else…

     

    You think if any of these yahoos accidentally shoots themselves they will lie about it?

  60. 60.

    Chip Daniels

    Maybe someone else covered this, but I think the gun lobby is its own worst enemy.

    As they grow more militant and fanatical, they turn off any possible allies they may have.

    The public image of a “gun owner” is increasingly less and less the image of kindly Uncle Joe who hunts deer and more and more Dylann Roof or Travis Bickle.

  61. 61.

    debbie

    Someone on NPR reported a protester with a sign reading something like, “Don’t make me angry; you won’t like me when I’m angry.” Where’s the line on intimidation here?

  62. 62.

    Ruckus

    @jonas:

    You said it yourself.

    Because they have small dicks and are insecure about it.

    Was just thinking this morning about the watch I used to stand on the ship in port – sounding and security. There were two armed watches when in port, quarterdeck, which is where the gangplank goes and the one I stood. For 4 hrs my watch was walking the full length of the ship, dropping a plumb bob down small holes to check and make sure we weren’t taking on water – sprung a leak, and acting as a security guard in case anyone stormed the ship. For the first year we had a round in the chamber with the safety on. Then one day a guy forgot how to unload the weapon before you handed it to the relief and the relief, being a non shooter in civilian life and having his head up his ass, actually fires the gun, inside the ship. No one was hurt but from that day on, no round in the chamber. I had fired a weapon and hunted. But I’d been generally in the line of fire 3 times doing that and decided that guns, while OK if used properly, seldom are. Too many people have their heads firmly lodged in their asses and really, really are not using what little brains they possess. People that are not used to guns rarely see what they actually do to a living thing. Movies don’t show blood guts and gore, that’s upsetting! The coverage of Vietnam was curtailed because people could see, in their living rooms, a bit of what war was like, how easy it is to die and how how easy it is to be mutilated. And how the people with the guns are most often the ones that get shot. Except of course if you are carrying a dick extender when most others are not. Of course because of that a lot of people, seemingly mostly (men) little boys, are daft about what a gun actually does, what it’s for. It is not a dick extension, although it seems like that is it’s main function in public life.

    I’ve lived a few years, I’ve been paid to carry a loaded gun, and had orders to shoot to kill if necessary. I’ve owned guns, I used to hunt, about a billion years ago, I’m comfortable handling guns because I know what they do and what they don’t do, and I made sure to learn how to do it as safely as possible, and follow that religiously. I don’t hate guns, they are a tool, almost like any other. Misused they kill without reason. So do hammers and knives. But hammers and knives have realistic uses, guns are for killing. You don’t use one to wound something, you use it to kill something. Modern military weapons have been and are designed for effective, volume, killing. Nothing else. You don’t hunt for food with them, they are not dick extenders.

    I wonder, if those gun humpers had to spend time in a ward of a military hospital or the VA, if they would value a gun over reality nearly as much as they do. I wasn’t in combat but I’ve spent a bit of time in a military hospital and lots of time in the VA and respected guns and what they were for long before I had to carry one and I know there is no need for them in modern life and that was that way a half a century ago. I don’t need to kill animals to live, so I don’t. I have no need to kill humans, so I don’t. And anyone carrying a semi auto military weapon in public doesn’t either.

  64. 64.

    Roger Moore

    @Bill Arnold:

    They’re sort of smiling in that twitter pic, but I’m still not sure: are these good guys with guns, or bad guys with guns?

    They’re white guys with guns.  That means they’re assumed to be good guys until and unless they start shooting.  In that case, hoocoodanode that the guy who accumulated an arsenal was a danger?  And, of course, the guy was just a lone wolf, and it’s totally unfair to tar all white arsenal owners as dangerous just because of this one guy did the same thing a bunch of other white arsenal owners did.

  65. 65.

    Richard Guhl

    The gun god death cult demands that the rest of us kowtow to their warped hero fantasies and their sick fears, because, if we refuse, they’re victims of oppression.

    They are petty tyrants who want us to validate the garbage thoughts ricocheting between their ears.

  66. 66.

    debbie

    @rikyrah:

    I follow the Royal Family on FB and Instagram. I am not ashamed of this, but I have long been appalled by the racist crap in the comments (even from those with Top Commenter badges). She got pregnant just to take attention away from Kate,  she never combs her hair, she’s using Harry for his money, she doesn’t iron her clothes, and far, far stupider things. That Harry would go away is no surprise, but I was a bit disappointed he didn’t directly challenge the racist assholes when he spoke last night.

  67. 67.

    Duane

    @Raoul: Trumpov not bothering to attend an MLK Day event is pretty damn low. Can’t even pretend to care. That’s alright, nobody wants the asshole around anyway.

  68. 68.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Booger: @germy:

    Looks like groups of heavy, armed men.

    I’ve seen one or two masked people in this gaggle of fucking goobers who might be women (and I suspect reporters have looked hard to find them). So far I haven’t seen a single one who isn’t white.

  69. 69.

    Ruckus

    @cleek:

    The kids I grew up with did that with plastic guns. Cap guns. When we were seven. We didn’t do that when we grew up. Maybe that’s because we actually grew up and realized what real guns did. It wasn’t go bang – bang. Maybe the fact that there was a war on that we most likely would have to go fight in, possibly die in is what made the difference. It did to our parents. I think it did for most of us. But today it’s sterile, we see little of the dying. It’s half a world away, out of our lives. Sort of. But we’ve been at war and had war glorified for almost 2 decades now. And people are coming home after 4 and 5 tours, lives never to be anywhere near the same. The look in their eyes at the VA is far more distant, more raw, more broken. We’ve stolen the life out of them. No amount of excuses of why are doing what we are is enough.

  70. 70.

    Aleta

     

    Andrew Kimmel @andrewkimmel

    I asked this #Richmond2ARally attendee what from the Governor’s proposal rubs him the wrong way.

    (Long pause as he tries to think. Finally starts to talk about whatever.  (That is, other rhetoric and fears about gun control, disinfo that is mostly or entirely unrelated.)

    Andrew Kimmel @andrewkimmel

    This is Sheriff Richard Vaughan of Grayson County, VA. “If the bills go through as proposed, they will not be enforced. They are unconstitutional.”

    This is not true, according to the Exec. Dir. of the VA Assoc. of Chiefs of Police..

     

    Andrew Kimmel  @andrewkimmel

    These guys set up a perimeter of cones. I walked through it and got warned to “get out of our circle”

    (Photo of the the yellowflags  in their special ‘inner circle.’)

  71. 71.

    Ruckus

    @Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:

    Yes. This is about racism. And the ability to control and kill an entire group of people. If it was one or two it wouldn’t require military weapons and all the ammo. They aren’t just expecting a race war, they want a race war, or at least think they do.

  72. 72.

    Ruckus

    @HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes:

    They do seem terrified of people actually wanting to talk to them, unarmed people….

    It’s like their entire line of bullshit is an entire line of well, bullshit. And they know it. I’ll ask the ladies, how many of those guys look at all like someone you’d like to know? Even casually. Do they give off that vibe even without the guns? I’d bet yes.

  73. 73.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: That was really good.  Thank you for linking to it.

    I don’t follow the royal doings, but it was nearly impossible to miss the wedding photos.  I simply do not know how it would even be possible for a living, breathing person to look at the wedding photos of the two of them together and not see that this is love.  Real love, the kind of love that Barack and Michelle have.

    Fuck everyone who doesn’t get that; if you can’t even see that when it’s right in front of you, I have no idea how you could even hope to ever have that with another person.

    I hope they have a wonderful life together.

  74. 74.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Chip Daniels:

    Maybe someone else covered this, but I think the gun lobby is its own worst enemy.

    As they grow more militant and fanatical, they turn off any possible allies they may have.

    I don’t know. I increasingly have the occasional feelings that we need lots of guns so that we can shoot back at these people when it all goes hot and they come to kill us. (I know it’s not rational–these weapons aren’t effective at scale without organization, and with the organization maybe you don’t need so many guns.)

    And I think maybe that’s the NRA’s conscious strategy: be so scary that liberals actually want more guns in order to fight them.

  77. 77.

    Ruckus

    @Gin & Tonic:

    What isn’t weird about trump?

    His entire life has been a toxic experiment in how far off the rails can one survive. And it’s left victims all along the way. People he’s cheated out of money, women he’s cheated on and with. His kids. The visual sight lines around his vlad’s properties. And I’d bet there is more that we don’t know about, or want to know about.

  78. 78.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Ruckus:

    I’ll ask the ladies, how many of those guys look at all like someone you’d like to know? Even casually.

    As someone who’s been a female human for six decades: FUCK NO. I can smell the stink of dimwitted, resentful loser all the way from California.

    Do they give off that vibe even without the guns? I’d bet yes.

    OH HELL YES.

  87. 87.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Maybe it’s some other guy? I was skeptical about the story (and the picture), but Parnas keeps showing up in so damn many places that you can’t rule it out. He’s like the “Where’s Waldo?” of Russo-Trumpian corruption.

  89. 89.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @Matt McIrvin: Yep.

    Red Summer 1919.
    Tulsa 1921.
    Rosewood 1923.

    And here are *just* the guys to do it all over again.

    There’s a reason why the number of black gun clubs has exploded over the last three years.

  90. 90.

    bemused

    @debbie:

    Ugh. I had no idea they were that bombarded with racism. Don’t these awful people have enough to do to take care of themselves and mind their own business. Guess not.

  93. 93.

    Ruckus

    @Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:

    Then about what I expected.

    There is a segment of the male population that thinks that being a tough guy attracts women. And it might, I don’t know, not being a woman and all. But my experience is that no, it doesn’t. Life isn’t a contest about who is the biggest bully or ass or jackoff. Actually it is about equality. People like trump, who thinks he’s miles above everyone else, while he’s actually the exact opposite. He’s anything but normal, realistic, human. He only attracts those that have something to gain, money, power, which he doesn’t have himself, which is why he lies about his money and his power is like a TV set, looks good, as long as the camera is focused tight enough. Get a wide shot and it’s just a set. His entire life is a set, mostly unreal, and the in focus parts are a joke. A joke that has been taken way too far. His life is that comedian in joke, The Aristocrats.

  97. 97.

    Mike in NC

    I lived in Virginia in the early 1990s when they briefly had a sensible (to most people) “one-gun-a-month” purchase policy. Republicans thought it was worse than mandatory abortions.

  101. 101.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Steeplejack (phone): I’ve done some more digging. Even though the picture is of pretty low quality, there isn’t a visible cleft in the chin there, which Parnas has. And some people on reddit are saying that’s a New York tax attorney named Barry Feldman. There is a NY tax attorney by that name, who finished law school in 1978, which would place him in his mid- to upper 30’s. That’s more in keeping with what you see in the photo (not many 19-year-olds wear French cuffs and a pocket square) and makes more sense – even though Parnas was reportedly working for Fred Trump in the early 90’s.

  103. 103.

    Evil_Paul

    @Ruckus: I’m sure there’s some women who are attracted to men who seem violent, just like Trump has women who seem to love him and vote for him.

    I’ve run into this a couple of times: Women who seem genuinely proud that their husband is violent.  And not just your basic “I feel like he’d protect me” but more of a “he’ll fight a random stranger for looking at me funny.”  I’ve only seem it a couple of times but it’s genuinely scary how happy a woman can be at the fact that, at any given moment, her husband’s ready to hospitalize somebody.

    I don’t know if there’s been any research done on this, but I can’t help but think it’s a sign of an abusive upbringing.  Like how a child raised in an abusive household is much more likely to become an abuser?  Same idea.  If Daddy was a rage-case that becomes your standard for a husband.

  104. 104.

    Aleta

    Andrew Kimmel  @andrewkimmel

    This is Aubrey “Japharii” Jones, the president of Black Lives Matter 757. He doesn’t believe the reaction would’ve been the same today if it were thousands of African-Americans marching with guns. 

    https://twitter.com/andrewkimmel/status/1219335796408422400

    molly conger @socialistdogmom     (A while ago)

    cops are trying to clear the streets so they can be reopened. the guillotine is in the middle of the intersection, along with hundreds of people.

    interestingly, the cops aren’t really pressing the issue. i wonder if it has to do with the fact that the crowd is armed to the teeth? some lessons to be learned here, perhaps.

    having been in this position as a rally attendee many times, this is about the time the cops would declare an unlawful assembly (if they even bother) and start beating the shit out of us. they are just passively holding the center of the intersection surrounded by an armed crowd.

    I’m the decisions by authorities are just because “grey area.”  (Not.)

  105. 105.

    Aleta

    One more from Andrew Kimmel’s twitter.   (Video ) 

    Watch as someone with the NRA tried to break up an argument, only to get dissed by attendees. “The NRA is a joke… traitors.”

  107. 107.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Evil_Paul: You’ve seen those T-shirts, I’m sure:

    “My husband is a CRAZED KILLER

    he has POOR IMPULSE CONTROL

    and I am his QUEEN

    he will DISEMBOWEL YOU for LOOKING AT ME

    and WE LOVE EACH OTHER FOREVER”

    etc.

  109. 109.

    Matt McIrvin

    @A Ghost To Most: The only time I’ve ever actually fired a gun was several decades ago, and I remember being struck even then by the amount of right-wing propaganda pinned up at the gun range. I’m just about the last person in the world you’d want to have a weapon. I don’t *like* the idea that the way to respond to this is to arm up, or the feeling that the gun lobby might be playing both sides against each other to foment an actual civil war. But the fact that the cops usually seem to be on the bad guys’ side here deeply worries me.

  111. 111.

    Ruckus

    @bemused:

    True, but I’d bet that’s because none of the women they think they want and deserve will have anything to do with them.

  114. 114.

    Ruckus

    @bemused:

    50-60 yrs ago or more, people worked 50-60 hr weeks, normally. They were always tired and had little spare time. Today we don’t work like that a lot. Yes we work shifts but unless you have to work 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet most people don’t do that many hours week in and week out. They have more spare time. And if they live at home…..

  115. 115.

    Evil_Paul

    @Matt McIrvin: Yeah, that’s the type.  Don’t know what percentage they make up, don’t know what their specific psychological drivers are, but they’re real and they’re helping the violent assholes reproduce.

  118. 118.

    VFX Lurker

    Possible political parallel: in California, vaccination laws were sharply tightened since the 2015 measles outbreak at Disneyland. Anti-vaxxer protesters started appearing at unusual events like the San Diego Comic Con, and an anti-vaxxer threw blood on our state legislature last year. These wild, desperate individual actions did not start until the majority of the California public turned against anti-vaxxers.

    I think the gun extremists in Virginia have already lost the majority support of Virginians, and they know it. That said, they’re carrying more lethal instruments than a small cup of blood and protest signs.

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