Gun Issues

When I lived in Scotland, I was told the legend of a lone MacDonald highlander, perched on the edge of the battlefield after the battle of Killiecrankie. The story goes that he was overheard keening:

Twas a bad day today.

As bad a day as yesterday.

Will be a bad day tomorrow.

The person who related the story to me called this MacDonald’s Lament. I have never been able to validate it, but it seems to fit the weekend.

Here’s some of the living descendants of Frederick Douglass reading his classic essay What To the Slave Is the Fourth of July:

Here’s the abolitionist version of My Country Tis of Thee:

And since I know you’ll riot if I don’t post it, your daily Patron!

What's up? 😝 It's me. I decided to write to you more actively here. And I think to do it in English. 👍🏻 or 👎🏻? pic.twitter.com/Dvtf97mkZ5

— Patron (@PatronDsns) July 4, 2022

Here’s new video from Patron’s official TikTok:

@patron__dsns

Побував на уламках Чернігівського мосту…😔 #песпатрон #патрондснс #славаукраїні

♬ У мене немає дому – Один в каное

The caption says:

I visited the wreckage of the Chernihiv Bridge… #pespatron #patrondsns #slavaukraine

I’ll be back tomorrow night with a regular update.

Open thread!

Twas a Bad Day Today…Post + Comments (18)

As I’m sure we’re all aware by now some guy from California tried to get access to Associate Justice Kavanaugh’s home around 1:30 AM this morning to assassinate him. He didn’t get past the US Marshals assigned to patrol and secure the Kavavaughs’ property and the Kavanaughs themselves, immediately admitted to what he was doing, then admitted it again after he was Mirandized. Several hours later Senator McConnell did his usual lachrymose bit on the Senate floor demanding the Democratic led House of Representatives immediately pass the bill that the Senate unanimously passed in under half an hour to increase the security and protection of the Supreme Court justices. You may recall the Senate actually moving very fast about a month ago within several hours of Associate Justice Alito’s neighbors hosting a block party to protest Alito’s draft opinion overturning Roe V Wade. The neighbors were armed with such deadly weapons as wine, cheese, crudites, and s’mores for the kids!

It is important to note that it is already illegal to protest at the homes of Supreme Court justices and that protesting at/in front of the Supreme Court itself is severely restricted. There’s no reporting on what the home owners’ association covenants in Associate Justice Alito’s neighborhood have to say about this.

If the motto on my business cards wasn’t “The question IS NOT am I paranoid; the question is AM I PARANOID ENOUGH?” and because I don’t believe in coincidences, I’d almost think this was all too convenient.

Regardless, part of the problem here is the Republican Party and the conservative movement has been very vocal that the 2nd Amendment was actually intended to stop tyranny and/or overthrow the government, not for hunting.

Here’s Congressman Thomas Massie (R-Gun Owners of America) saying that on his House web page:

The Right to Keep and Bear Arms is not principally about hunting or recreation. In fact, the Second Amendment to our Constitution is our Founding Fathers’ restatement of our natural God given right to defend life, liberty, and property.

Here’s Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Pedo) making it even more explicit:

The Second Amendment is not about hunting, recreation, or sports. The Second Amendment is about the ability to maintain, within the citizenry, an armed rebellion against the government if that becomes necessary. I hope it never does.

Here’s the video, which was at one of his joint appearances with Congresswoman Taylor Greene (R-Sex With Someone Other Than My Husband In the Crossfit Box).

Here’s Senator Rand Paul (R-Moscow Oblast), who was almost shot when the GOP softball practice was targeted for a little armed rebellion if you know what Matt Gaetz means and I think you do (it means paying teenagers to dress up like Jefferson Davis and have sex with him).

Why do we have a Second Amendment? It’s not to shoot deer. It’s to shoot at the government when it becomes tyrannical!

Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Had Sex With the Guy Who Looks Like Zangrief and Is Not My Husband) has this to say about the 2nd Amendment on the Blue Footed Booby of Budapest’s radio show:

“Ultimately, the truth is it’s our Second Amendment rights, our right to bear arms, that protects Americans and gives us the ability to defend ourselves from a tyrannical government,” she said. “And I hate to use this language, but Democrats, they’re exactly … they’re doing exactly what our Founders talked about when they gave us the precious rights that we have.”

Here’s what Congresswoman Boebert (R-I Bought Bolt Ons Bigger Than My Head In the Hope That My Husband Will Stop Exposing His Penis To Teenage Girls In the Bowling Alley Instead and Will Instead Look at My Aftermarket Chest) had to say about the 2nd Amendment:

Congresswoman-elect Lauren Boebert says with a giggle that the Second Amendment “has nothing to do with hunting, unless you’re talking about hunting tyrants, maybe.” Boebert expressed this opinion in an interview with Breitbart News at Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit held in Florida last week.

While not a Republican official, here’s The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway’s take on the 2nd Amendment:

“I think it’s comforting for simple-minded people to think that restricting the natural right to keep and bear arms would solve all of our problems, that destroying the Constitution would solve our problems,” said Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway on Fox News after President Joe Biden’s Thursday night gun control address. “We have a natural right of self-defense and to guard against tyranny in the Second Amendment, this is something that makes us American.”

“And Joe Biden showed that he does not respect the Constitution,” Hemingway continued. “He does not support this natural right. That really is an impeachable offense to talk this way against something so foundational to the country.”

Let’s leave aside the conflating of natural rights, which is a Catholic theological concept, with the US Constitution, which is not the reason to cite Hemingway here is she’s been beside herself all day about this. And quite frankly that’s TWO Mollie Hemingway’s too many! Earlier today Hemingway was freaking out about Associate Justice Kavanaugh’s safety and how this is all Senator Schumer’s fault for inciting Americans to acts of terrorism against the Republican members of the Supreme Court. Or any other elected or appointed official either.

Consistency, little minds, hobgoblins…

It took me two minutes of keyword searching to find these quotes and videos. It took 35 minutes longer to copy, paste, and write it all up in a post than it did to find it with the keyword search.

This rhetoric, specifically indicating that the sole purpose of the 2nd Amendment is so that Americans can either scare elected and appointed officials into doing what they want them to do or not do or to overthrow the government is all the rage in the Republican Party and conservative movement. As a result none of them should be surprised, least of all Senator McConnell, when an American decides to take his 2nd Amendment rights out for a cross country adventure to stop what he believes is tyrannical behavior by an appointed government official with lifetime tenure and his own security detail.

That’s not to condone what fortunately didn’t happen in the early morning hours on the mean, manicured lawns of suburban Maryland. But given the Republicans own violent rhetoric and publicly expressed fantasies it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that someone is listening, absorbing it, and ultimately acting on it.

That’s why we call it stochastic terrorism.

Finally, the 2nd Amendment is NOT about overthrowing the government, it was about Madison trying to finagle the thorny issue of who would have control over the state militias in order to keep the anti-Federalists from preventing the Constitution being ratified and destroying the US before it had a chance to get started. The best history of this is Saul Cornell’s A Well Regulated Militia.

Open thread!

According To These Republican Elected Officials the 2nd Amendment Is For Stopping Tyranny, Not For HuntingPost + Comments (65)