Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

The willow is too close to the house.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

We won’t go back.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

A consequence of cucumbers

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

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

Let me file that under fuck it.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

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

Optimism opens the door to great things.

You are here: Home / Gun Issues / Gun nuts / Late Night Open Thread: Mock, But Don’t Point

Late Night Open Thread: Mock, But Don’t Point

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Never point your weapon at something you might want to use later, they told me…

Speaking of gunhumpers mishandling things:


He has a book to sell, while it’s still news:

The National Rifle Association’s former second-in-command is breaking with the group’s orthodoxy and calling for universal background checks and so-called red flag laws in a new book assailing the organization as more focused on money and internal intrigue than the Second Amendment, while thwarting constructive dialogue on gun violence.

The former executive, Joshua L. Powell, who was fired by the N.R.A. in January, reinforces the kind of criticism made of the organization by gun control groups and state regulators, but it is the first critical look at its recent history by such a high-ranking insider.

He describes the N.R.A.’s longtime chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, as a woefully inept manager, but also a skilled lobbyist with a deft touch at directing President Trump to support the group’s objectives, and who repeatedly reeled in the president’s flirtations with even modest gun control measures…

Much of the book centers on Mr. LaPierre, who Mr. Powell says “couldn’t run an organization on a fiscally sound basis to save his life,” and who filled the N.R.A.’s coffers by catering to “the extreme fringe.” So pervasive were the organization’s troubles, Mr. Powell says, that Mr. LaPierre confided in him last year that he was thinking about quitting, and possibly asking Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate, or Jason Chaffetz, a former House member, to replace him…

Yeah, with options like those two, it’s pretty safe to say the NRA is *not* about to return to its roots as a gun-safety organization.

Reader Interactions

111Comments

  1. 1.

    Kent

    I have family who are long-time NRA members. I’m sort of afraid to ask what they think now. That’s almost cruel. But prior to the recent complete melt-down of the organization they mostly just did it for the magazine American Rifleman which is sort of those must-have virtue-signaling thing to have sitting around your house in certain parts of the country.

    Now days there are more upscale choices like Garden and Guns (really, I’m not making that up, I thought it was parody when I first saw a copy in my dentist’s office in Texas): https://gardenandgun.com/ which is sort of a southern-oriented Sunset Magazine with sections on guns and fishing for the guys.  The kind of thing that George Will would write for if he lived in Savannah and owned hunting dogs.

  2. 2.

    randy

    My favorite Army Surplus on South Broadway is advertising Thin Blue Line Clothing. I guess I’ll have to find another place to shop.

  4. 4.

    dmsilev

    It doesn’t matter whether or not you believe in Darwinian evolution; Darwinian evolution believes in you.

  5. 5.

    Benw

    Imagine if we’d spent that last 50 years fetishizing diapers instead? Pampers would be the most powerful corporation on the planet and a shitload of people would still be alive

  6. 6.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Does anybody know what the “October Surprise” Barr promised last week is all about? Just heard about it today

  8. 8.

    Steeplejack

    Confession: I was a member of the NRA. Okay, it was sometime around 1962, when I was 10, and I got a damn good education in gun safety and target shooting with the .22 that my parents gave me.* But it could be used against me in some political smear campaign.

    ———
    * Still don’t understand what that was about. We never lived anyplace where I could just take it out into the woods and blast away, and I was never much interested in hunting. I had it with me the summer I stayed with my grandparents on the farm in Tennessee, when I was 11 or 12, and I think I left it there. Come to think of it, I need to find out what that was about.

  10. 10.

    Ken

    I keep trying to figure out how you would draw the weapon from those mask-holders without either shooting your ear or ripping off the mask (or in a combo, ripping off your ear with the mask).  Anyone having better luck?

  12. 12.

    Kay

    Among the hundreds of grants the NRA foundation distributed over those four years, only three are listed as going to schools as part of the National School Shield program, for a total of less than $200,000.

    Another gross Right wing grift.

    They started the School Shield scam right after Sandy Hook. Which means they used the deaths of those little kids to line their own pockets.
    There is no bottom. Each revelation is more appalling than the last.

  19. 19.

    dmsilev

    @Ken: Never mind actually trying to use the gun, just think about what the weight of the gun does to the ears (since that’s where the mask is ultimately supported from).

  21. 21.

    Steeplejack

    @Ken:

    It’s just performative bullshit and “Haw-haw, we owned the libs, they believed it!” But there are no doubt some idiots who didn’t get the memo and will give it a go. Darwin Award paperwork set on autofill.

  22. 22.

    Ruckus

    @Kent:

    I belonged to the NRA. 53 yrs ago. Then I grew up and realized that most people with guns have no concept that it is a weapon and is useful only for killing. Also there was a war on and my draft number turned up to be 15. So I assumed that I’d have enough weapons around to reenforce the concept that killing can be a way of life.

    The NRA has become one the worst grifting organizations on the planet. They fetishize death by gunpowder and bullets.

    No Thanks.

  24. 24.

    Steeplejack

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Not until we know what it is. Barr has been pretty open about his plans to fuck up the election, so no surprises there.

    And—SteepAnon alert!—this salvo of Trump revelations that started this week and seems to be continuing makes me wonder whether the deep state has decided to pull out all the stops and make sure that Trump loses in a landslide so big it’s immune to any Barr “October surprises” or electoral shenanigans.

  25. 25.

    Steeplejack

    @randy:

    Who “their”? NRA? I was referring to the “NRA survey” ad in the middle of the NYT story shown at the end of Anne Laurie’s post above.

  28. 28.

    Kay

    @Ruckus:

    Just the numbers on the Right wing grift payroll are extraordinary. There are thousands of people who finance their lavish lifestyle thru donations by Right wing nuts. You could fill a convention hall with them. It could be a vocational program. There are definitely more people living off Right wing donations than there are coalminers. And it gets bigger every year. If you count Falwell, and you should, there are right now 4 investigations into Right wing grift orgs, and that doesn’t even count the Trump Campaign, which is also skimming millions of dollars.

  29. 29.

    Kent

    @Ruckus: I agree with you 100%.   I’m just suggesting that there are a lot of folks out there who are kind of just NRA members out of habit and for the magazine and not because they even follow gun politics.  They just have a vague sense that having an NRA magazine on your coffee table is the right wing version of say a lefty displaying Mother Jones or Utne Reader or whatever in terms of virtue signaling.

    I expect the recent scandals have changed things.

  32. 32.

    West of the Rockies

    @Ken:

    It’s gotta be a super uncomfortable mask.  Having a few pounds of steel hanging off your face?  Someone is compensating for an anatomical shortcoming.

  33. 33.

    JaySinWA

    @Steeplejack: I have no problem believing that their idea of an October surprize has no grounding in a real view of surprize. Or that they won’t step on whatever surprize they have in store by announcing it in time for it to be crushed before it is official.

  34. 34.

    Steeplejack

    @randy:

    Okay, explain to me like I’m slow what Denver Army Surplus has to do with what we’re talking about? Do they have an ad that is appearing here? If so, I’m not seeing it, because I AdBlock the shit out of stuff and throw Cole some cash now and then.

  35. 35.

    West of the Rockies

    @Steeplejack:

    Christ, I can hardly wait until Bill Barr waddles out of his office for the last time under the weight of his enormous head.  He goes from chief ratfucker to impotent Pez dispenser of rage and conspiracy theories.

  36. 36.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:

    I think my favs are the Mercers. Owe 7 BILLION to the IRS. Now that’s some hardcore grifting.

    But yes the republican party has always been about easy money and keeping it in their hands. At least for the last 120 yrs. Governing? Not so much. Once again I have to say that the only difference with shitforbrains is he’s too stupid to not scream the quiet parts out loud.

  38. 38.

    Kent

    @LetoI saw that magazine the other day and thought it was a joke. I just don’t get it but I’m not the target audience.

    It is actually pretty popular with a certain set in the south.  Their target market is the douche frat boy from a SEC school after they turn 30 and get a mortgage and want to start feeling sophisticated and urban in a southern way.  You know, the type who wear ties and blazers to Alabama football games and lounge around their frat houses drinking mint juleps.  And then move on to a regional sales rep job with some corporation and buy a house in the suburbs.  And their counterpart sorority girls.  There are a LOT of them.

  41. 41.

    Leto

    @Kent: Oh, I know the type. Lived among them for almost 30 years. Here’s the recipe for the best biscuits and jam to have for your Sunday brunch, and on the next page, here’s our test review of the best buck shot to use. I still just find it dumb, mainly because for the people being described, the women will still get Home and Garden and the men will still pick up a hunting/gun specific magazine. The way Garden and Guns is packaged, it’s for their parents. It’s the 50+ plus country club crowd. Idk, it’s just dumb.

  42. 42.

    Steeplejack

    @randy:

    Okay, I see. Sorry. I am fastidious about “replying” to comments, so I didn’t see the connection. Just came into a new thread and popped off a comment about the criticism of the NYT having an NRA ad in the middle of an NRA exposé story. I have yet to see any site that is really in control of their ad placement.

  43. 43.

    Gvg

    @West of the Rockies: I think it must be a fake gun. It’s just like putting a logo on your clothes to show how cool you are, that crowd puts guns on everything…probabilities on their underwear too.

    you are right, that makes no sense from a gun use point of view, which signals to me, these aren’t real gun user, they just play.

    there are real gun people, these aren’t them.

    i recall 25 years ago my gun loving cousin explaining he had to stop hunting with his high school best friend who just wanted to drive around near the entrance of hunting areas with beer in the car instead of quietly sneaking around in the woods to get a deer. Cousin said he felt unsafe around his careless friend. Uncle chimed I’m with other examples he had known. I learned their were different groups of gun users who didn’t hang out together.

  44. 44.

    trollhattan

    Nasty wildfire east of Fresno.

    Rescue mission underway to save 150 trapped by Creek Fire near Mammoth Pool Reservoir

    At least 10 people were injured and others remained in danger Saturday night among the 1,000 people trapped near Mammoth Pool Reservoir due to a fast-growing wildfire, the Madera County Sheriff’s Office confirmed.

    Fresno Community Regional Medical Center admitted six burn victims who were evacuated from the Mammoth Pool Reservoir area and the hospital was preparing for the possibility of receiving more evacuees.

    The severity of their burns were not immediately known. Meanwhile, 65 people received medical treatment at a triage set up at the Fresno Yosemite International Airport, Madera County Sheriff public information officer Sarah Jackson confirmed.
    https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article245524785.html#storylink=cpy

    Yikes

  46. 46.

    Kent

    @Leto:@Kent: Oh, I know the type. Lived among them for almost 30 years. Here’s the recipe for the best biscuits and jam to have for your Sunday brunch, and on the next page, here’s our test review of the best buck shot to use. I still just find it dumb, mainly because for the people being described, the women will still get Home and Garden and the men will still pick up a hunting/gun specific magazine. The way Garden and Guns is packaged, it’s for their parents. It’s the 50+ plus country club crowd. Idk, it’s just dumb.

    It’s virtue signalling.  No one really reads the articles unless they are at a dentist office.  It is what you put on your coffee table in your Chip and Joanna home to go with the shiplap siding and hand-blown shot glasses.  So your guests don’t mistake you for some sort of fucking lib or Yankee.  It’s a white persons magazine but they always have some article about some random black chef or musician so they can feel “woke” in that patronizing Southern way.  Like when upscale white southerners search out that best BBQ joint in a black neighborhood to say that they did, then quickly scurry back home to their gated subdivision.

  47. 47.

    NotMax

    OT.

    Internet (and only some cable channels, including TCM) outage for over 5 hours this afternoon. Came back up a short bit ago. Unable to call ISP because my phone service, through them, was also down.

    Consequent physical palpitations abating.

    ;)

  48. 48.

    Steeplejack

    TCM now in the middle of Penelope Spheeris’s 1981 music doc The Decline of Western Civilization, about the Los Angeles punk scene. To be followed by Part II (1988), about the heavy metal scene.

  50. 50.

    NotMax

    C-SPAN3 showed back-to-back several Post Office documentaries/instructional shorts from the 40s/50s/60s earlier today. during their Reel America program

    Interesting choice on their part

  51. 51.

    joel hanes

    @Kent:

    Until 1977, the NRA was a sane gun-safety and marksmanship education organization.   They helped the government write the gun laws that still prevent you from owning an M60 full machine gun, a Tommy gun, or a bazooka unless you go through some rigorous licensing and pony up some real money.  The National Rifleman was a pretty anodyne publication, largely concerned with deer hunting and target competitions.

    Then at the 1977 NRA national convention, an organized cabal of 2nd Amendment absolutists showed up in large numbers and voted all their own candidates into every national office, replacing the entire leadership overnight.

    Within a year, the magazine had taken several large steps toward the kind of fascist propaganda it has promulgated ever since, with a new focus on using guns to “protect” oneself and one’s family against other people.

  52. 52.

    hotshoe

    @trollhattan: yeah, heard on car radio this afternoon they were officially advising people to get into the reservoir water to save their own lives if necessary when it looked as if fire would sweep through the entire area.

    Although I guess I wouldn’t wait to be officially told to get in the water if I were anywhere near …

    I can’t imagine how horrified the folks are — still sheltering there waiting for rescue — and the families waiting for news.

    Welcome to global warming.

    Goddamn every sick climate-change denier. Goddamn their eyes.

  53. 53.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @joel hanes:

    I’d love to know who was behind that “organized cabal of Second Amendment absolutists.” Perhaps Silverman can shed some light.

  54. 54.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): and @JaySinWA:

    The Trump administration’s record of following through with declarations of what they will do is pretty sparse.  The farther out the time scale, the less likely.  Trump also has zero patience and is needy as Hell.  If Barr had an October surprise, he would be releasing it now instead of in October.

    No, what I’m hearing is flopsweat and wishful thinking.  They are desperately hoping for a vaccine rather than having one.  They will surely throw out multiple attempts at an October surprise, but they’ll be hastily cobbled-together garbage nobody takes seriously.  Nunes Memo type stuff.  Comey moves a crucial 2% of the vote because he was publicly trusted and validating what everyone ‘knew’.  Barr has neither of those advantages.  Frankly, he’s only competent compared to the breathtaking dimwits around him.

    And if they get lucky and shove out a vaccine in the next two months, they’ll fuck it up.  They always do.  When Jared got off his ass and finally tried to help the pandemic he failed.  He couldn’t organize PPE and ventilator distribution.  His and the administration’s whole organizational philosophy are just too stupid.

  58. 58.

    mrmoshpotato

    Assclowns – as in “How long until one of these clowns has a bullet exit through an ass cheek?”

  60. 60.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @NotMax:

    That’s pretty close to what it was.  “My team of young, go-getter MBAs will leverage their contacts to do a way better job than old-fashioned career bureaucrats!”  And all they got were promises that never came through.  Grifters flocked to milk the sucker.  There was no sign Jared or Trump even made money off it.  Pure rich guy stupidity in action.

  62. 62.

    Origuy

    Blackhawk helicopters have been bringing out people trapped at the Mammoth Pools campground, 20 at a time. There were about 150 people there. There are reports of other people trapped. I’m somewhat familiar with the area; I’ve been to Shaver Lake several times. The only way out of the area is Highway 168 west; there are no roads through to the east that cross the Sierra.

  63. 63.

    Anne Laurie

    @Leto: Here’s the recipe for the best biscuits and jam to have for your Sunday brunch, and on the next page, here’s our test review of the best buck shot to use. I still just find it dumb, mainly because for the people being described, the women will still get Home and Garden and the men will still pick up a hunting/gun specific magazine. The way Garden and Guns is packaged, it’s for their parents. It’s the 50+ plus country club crowd. Idk, it’s just dumb.

    I know a lot of magazines like that used to be targeted specifically as ‘gift subscriptions suitable for your _____’.  Maybe the G&G publishers rely on 30-something married spouses buying subs for the in-laws, or vice versa?

    Of course, the bulk medical-supply ‘suitable reading for any dentist/optometrist/wellness center practice’ is probably a reliable niche, too…

  64. 64.

    Poe Larity

     

    @randy: Was driving through Jefferson County CA last week and am still confused why the local patriots were all flying thin blue line flags. 20 years ago they were all Gadsden flag waving, RATM and anti-authorati.

    I guess it wasn’t just Paul Ryan who missed the point.

  66. 66.

    TS (the original)

    @Frankensteinbeck:

     He couldn’t organize PPE and ventilator distribution.

    Which is why the states are being told to organise vaccine distribution – trump admin can’t organise their way out of the standard paper bag.

    The sane states, knowing the availability of a vaccine before Biden is elected is trump looking for a survival  route, won’t waste time & money on organising for a non event.

  67. 67.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @trollhattan: I was in Shaver Lake (just south of the fire) last weekend, and drove through what’s now the south end of the fire area. The place where I stayed is in the evacuation zone.

    Definitely, an odd feeling.

    Almost detoured to Mammoth Pools on the way home, but it would’ve taken too long because very windy road. Tough to evacuate people out of the area quickly, even if the lake wasn’t surrounded by the fire.

  69. 69.

    Sebastian

    @Steeplejack: 

    That’s what Josie and I were talking about last night on an almost dead post.

    This is coordinated. First Suckergate with multiple sources and the Trumpista defense forces got mowed down by machine gun fire. Just brutal.

    Now Cohen with FauxBama as opening move. First reaction everywhere was “this is bullshit, too crass, can’t trust Cohen, it was just a joke”. They burned through their usual cycles wayyyy too fast because … Lordy, there are tapes! Been out there for 8 years hahaha

    All other revelations in Disloyal will be treated differently because no one wants to be proven a fool in less than 24 hours. That’s a lot of damage about to rain down.

    It also hits hard into Donald’s relationship with Evangelicals (the GOP GOTV boots on the ground) and white working class. I am starting to have a hunch that Trump trashtalks whoever is not in the room. There will be witnesses and tapes.

    And Jesus Fucking Christ, THE COMEY RULE on Showtime 9/27 and 9/28. A fucking two night event and it looks absolutely amazing. Jeff Daniels, Brendan Gleeson, Michael Kelly, Jennifer Ehle, and Holly Hunter.

    They are taking Trump apart, bit by bit. McConnell must be shitting bricks. I wonder what Judge I love beer! is thinking right now.

  74. 74.

    raven

    Garden and Gun is a really good magazine and the only articles they have about guns are about antique and really high dollar game weapons. My only issues with it are that you don’t get a digital subscription with paper and you can’t look at the digital in landscape. We don’t virtue signal with the fucking thing we read it!

  76. 76.

    Kirk Spencer

    @Ruckus:

    I think my favs are the Mercers. Owe 7 BILLION to the IRS. Now that’s some hardcore grifting.

    I have this idle dream about the irs. That there is a rules change that says everyone in the top 0.1% gets audited annually, and the rest of the top 1% gets an audit every three years. Based on what we already think we know, the amount collected to include fines would more than pay for the additional auditors, attorneys, and clerks required.

    I’m old, I know many of the hurdles to that dream, hence the “idle” adjective. But still I dream.

    (Yes off-thread. But I couldn’t pass up the opening your comment provided.)

  77. 77.

    evodevo

    @Gvg: Yes. This, and like around here, probably shooting out the window of the car at  various critters who happen to cross the road or appear on the roadside.  Had a couple of yahoos do that right in front of my property one year..they had the bad luck that I pulled up right behind them. They sped up and beat it down the road.  Found the deer across my property line in some trees, dead .  I got the deer meat from that one…

  78. 78.

    lowtechcyclist

    I’m on board with the notion that the ‘mask holsters’ thing is someone’s joke.

    But is it just me, or does it seem like the notion of gun safety is increasingly being abandoned and ridiculed by the Second Amendment nuts?

  79. 79.

    Kirk Spencer

    @Gvg: nod. I don’t hunt anymore. Haven’t done so in decades. I understood bullets flying my way in the army. Having them snap past while standing in an open field and as I was passing through brush during hunting seasons was not tolerable. Do not know if either shooter was drunk or just naturally stupid. Don’t care.

  80. 80.

    artem1s

    @Steeplejack:

    .22 that my parents gave me.

    In the community I grew up, a .22 was the standard confirmation gift for boys.  I kid you not.  My brother got one but not me or any of my sisters.  He taught me the basics of shooting it.  I was 6 or 7 or so.  I know my crazy wing nut uncle took him rabbit hunting once and that’s the last time I remember seeing my brother with that gun.  He left off hunting before deer season.  My father ended up with it when my brother left for college. He used it for killing various varmints around the house.  My dad grew up on a farm when guns were actually tools, not fashion accessories.  But the .22 right of passage was pretty standard where I grew up.

  81. 81.

    artem1s

    @West of the Rockies:

    Christ, I can hardly wait until Bill Barr

    He’s the one guy I most want to see indicted and convicted out of this whole ratfucking grifting clan. Sure as shit the GOP will try to recycle him as a federal judge or put him on SCOTUS the next time they are in power.  He and Cheney both should have been in jail long time since.  Even if their pals commute the sentence at least being convicted of a federal crime can keep them from getting appointed to the bench.  Honestly, I’ve always thought the whole White Water Lewinsky affair was designed to keep Clinton off the bench but Newt had to have revenge for his AF1 seat and so he had to indulge himself in some revenge p0rn.

  82. 82.

    Matt McIrvin

    In the non-trivial chance this is an ironic meme, this ex-Boy Scout very much frowns on “jokes” where you point a firearm, even unloaded, directly at your soft and mushy insides, to say nothing of treating a tool such as that unseriously in general

    Right-wingers don’t understand irony; what they call “irony” is this kind of aggressive hyperbole aimed at triggering the libs, or sometimes any right-winger less extreme than themselves (the guns-pointing-at-dicks group may have been that), while also functioning as a trial balloon for a future sincere position. “You think I’m nuts? Fine, I’ll behave twice as nuts and see how you like that. If it goes over badly I’ll point out I was just yanking your chain and complain that you can’t take a joke.” It’s built on the formula of schoolyard bullying.

    Trump himself, of course, is the king of this; telling his fans to double-vote was an example–he even got the “you can’t take a joke” part in in advance.

  83. 83.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Steeplejack: I think my Dad had some small interest in shooting. I remember once we drove past a gun club and on a whim he stopped in and picked up an application.

    When he saw that they wanted you to fill in your family tree going back five generations he threw it away in disgust (he was the child of Russian Jews).

    Sometimes wonder what kind of weird WASP-y club that was and if there are a lot like that.

  84. 84.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Poe Larity: American “libertarians” have always been authoritarians at heart, despite the anti-authoritarian trappings. They just believe the hierarchy should have them on top, as kings of their own domains, protected by their inherent biological superiority and the stuff they own. It’s a declaration of certain types of power over other human beings as illegitimate and others as legitimate.

    The “thin blue line” stuff is about cops killing black people and making property damage a capital offense. Both things most libertarians are A-OK with.

  88. 88.

    prostratedragon

    @Morzer:
    Nice lede:

    After Donald Trump’s planned trip to a French cemetery for fallen Marines was canceled in November 2018, the U.S. leader had some extra time on his hands in a mansion filled with artwork.

  93. 93.

    different-church-lady

    WE ARE 90 COMMENTS IN AND NOBODY IS GOING TO MAKE A JOKE ABOUT SHOOTING YOUR MOUTH OFF??!!????!!!!?????

  97. 97.

    Ken

    @joel hanes: @BruceFromOhio: If the NRA is dissolved as a charity, New York must distribute its assets to another charity with similar goals. Do they have to use the current goals, or can they go back to the original ones – perhaps by arguing that the grifting started with the change of direction in 1977?

  98. 98.

    L85NJGT

    A few years back I heard an NPR piece on declining state DNR revenue from hunting and fishing licenses – a longtime Wisconsin DNR guy said the demographers told them thirty years ago the hunters would fade away.

    So there’s a lot of dad was an avid hunter, so I keep a piece (aka family heirloom) and read some magazines, rather than spend a shitty weekend in a blind or be arsed to get to the range.

  99. 99.

    M31

    @mrmoshpotato: Assclowns – as in “How long until one of these clowns has a bullet exit through an ass cheek?”

    “That’s my ass hole, not my asshole, but the hole  ’cause I’m an ass”

  101. 101.

    A Ghost to Most

    @L85NJGT: Or like me, like to shoot, but not at living things. I gave that up at 15. I killed a buncha clay pigeons and pots back in the day.

  102. 102.

    catclub

    @Steeplejack:

    speaking of phrasing:

     

    Imagine if we’d spent that last 50 years fetishizing diapers instead? Pampers would be the most powerful corporation on the planet and a shitload of people would still be alive

  103. 103.

    Jinchi

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Does anybody know what the “October Surprise” Barr promised last week is all about? Just heard about it today

    Did Barr actually call it an “October Surprise?”

    Because an October Surprise is explicitly political. That would be an open statement that he’s planning to meddle in the upcoming elections.

  104. 104.

    Yutsano

    @Jinchi: I thought the planned “October Surprise” was Thomas announcing his retirement so a replacement could be appointed right before the election. But at this point who knows?

  106. 106.

    Just Chuck

    @lowtechcyclist:

    But is it just me, or does it seem like the notion of gun safety is increasingly being abandoned and ridiculed by the Second Amendment nuts?

    Yep, as are the concepts of “well-regulated”, “security”, “free state”, and “being necessary”.

  107. 107.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @lowtechcyclist: If you follow the thesis of that The Atlantic’s article about Laura Ingram this is all about self loathing, so  that attitude fits that.

  108. 108.

    joel hanes

    @L85NJGT:

    rather than spend a shitty weekend in a blind

    Some of the best weekends of my adolescence were spent in a duck blind on a marsh — and on some of the very best of those, we never got in a shot.

    Eight hours of actually watching the sky, starting an hour before sunrise, feeds the soul —  if you can let your mind go still for a while and be present in the moment.

  111. 111.

    brantl

    I think that we should make examples of anti-gun control rhetoric, and apply it to explosives, like C4 and dynamite. Just run the same quotes that these knuckleheads keep espousing, except about dynamite. It will sound ridiculous, and the point will be obvious.

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