Thursday, May 08, 2014

Perhaps the best advocates for better gun control laws, are 2nd Amendment zealots themselves.

Courtesy of Bloomberg View:  

Employees of a Jack in the Box restaurant in Fort Worth, Texas, got a glimpse last week of an America where the more extreme element of the gun-rights movement has its way. Their reaction? They hid in the freezer. Parents in a public park in Georgia, confronted by another display of gun rights, called 911. 

Both the employees and the parkgoers were reacting to the presence of armed men in their midst. Police, however, could do nothing to ease their anxiety: These hair-trigger scenarios are precisely what such open-carry states have written into law. Indeed, in the 44 states with open carry of handguns, 31 of which don't even require a license or permit, almost anyone can walk down the street carrying a loaded gun. In all but 11 states, those running for cover can safely assume that many a neighborhood gunslinger lacks training in firearm safety and may have even purchased his weapon without a rudimentary background check. (Let's just skip the whole discussion about drugs and alcohol and guns. Too messy.) 

As hunting has declined, and the crime rate in the U.S. has plummeted over the past two decades, the gun-rights movement has increasingly rallied around guns for their own sake rather than as a tool to achieve an end, such as sport or safety. 

As public policy, open carry is pretty much indefensible. Listen to National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre, speaking after the slaughter in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012: "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun." Yet how do we tell one from the other? Should good guys don a red star to distinguish themselves in a crowd? What about sorta good guys with long insecurities and short tempers? Should they wear yellow for "caution"? Only when they're feeling angry? Please do advise, Wayne. 

Social norms long discouraged open carry even where it was legal. The gun-rights movement wants to change that. As it happens, there may be no better advocates for sensible gun regulation than the jittery men who treat guns as toys to be paraded in public. A witness in Georgia claimed the armed man in the parking lot had announced: "See my gun? Look, I got a gun and there's nothing you can do about it." His social etiquette may have been lacking, but the guy had Georgia law down cold. 

The more such acts of intimidation take place, the more they will make manifest the divide between responsible gun owners and zealots. Dangerous laws have nothing to do with the Second Amendment, which has always enabled regulation of guns and still does. They have everything to do with cultivating a culture of fear that benefits both the NRA and the gun industry. A parent at the Georgia park, Karen Rabb, explained the distinction. "I own a gun. I have no problems with the Second Amendment," she told Atlanta's WSB-TV. "But they do not belong in a parking lot where we have children everywhere. If you want to make a statement, go to the Capitol."

You know I have been considering the fact that the open carry lunatics are essentially clumsily arguing for better gun control laws myself. In fact there have been a few incidents, like that one in Michigan concerning the drunken open carry advocate, when I though surely these are gun control plants.

My main concern is that this ridiculous strutting around like heavily armed peacocks will not provided enough ammunition (If you will pardon the word) for gun control advocates until somebody actually gets shot by one of the Rambo Underoos wearing morons.

24 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:47 PM

    O/T but I'm not sure how to send info to IM. There's an article in the ADN describing a swipe Palin took at Parnell as well as some words of support for Bill Walker. I'm guessing that Parnell is one of the Palin secret-holders and am hoping that pissing him off may cause some skeletons from her closet to make an appearance. I know it's overly optimistic to think that she may actually be exposed given everything she and her family have gotten away with, but one can only hope.

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    1. Anonymous2:59 PM

      I read the article, too, on HuffPost. It's still there now. She may have stepped in it this time....now not only will the Christians be angry with her for her baptism as waterboarding comment, but her supporters in Alaska (the few who are left..lol....) will betray her also too. She really is a dim bulb, and I think she may be heading for another breakdown?

      link http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/08/sarah-palin-oil-tax_n_5290503.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

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    2. Anonymous3:09 PM

      Whenever Palin begins a sentence, "Well bless his heart" you know she is going to start shoveling a big fresh steamy pile of bullshit. She cannot go silently into the night.

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    3. Anonymous3:41 PM

      #Parnellknowswhyshequit

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    4. Anonymous4:40 PM

      Anonymous 3:41 PM - Do you know what Parnell knows?

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    5. Anonymous5:33 PM

      @4:40

      #Iknowwhyshequit

      Meantime here is an email to take a look at.

      s3.documentcloud.org/documents/319665/pra-gsp02-0014664.pdf

      It turned out to be Joshua Wade who confessed to killing Mindy Schloss.
      www.adn.com/2010/02/16/1141696/wade-admits-to-brown-schloss-murders.html

      Kendra Butts? Not too long after the email she became one of the Talkeetna Trick or Traeat Bandits. Trick or treaters were robbed of their treats at gunpoint.
      http://www.adn.com/2008/07/24/474274/halloween-robber-sentenced-to.html

      Joel Kenworthy was a hockey player for Wasilla.

      peninsulaclarion.com/stories/012105/sports_0121spo002.shtml

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  2. How long will it be before "Stand your ground" folks meet up with the Second Amendment' taunters at high noon somewhere, someday? And then what?

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    1. Anonymous3:50 PM

      My thoughts EXACTLY.

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    2. Anonymous4:46 PM

      Sauntering along with a firearm slung across your back is a fine demonstration of how easily someone can disarm you. My WWII paratrooper father said he could take a weapon from that sort of strutting idiot in seconds. I guess months of killing people and having people try to kill you changes one's perspective on what constitutes a responsible gun owner.

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  3. Remember this from last November?

    http://thedailybanter.com/2013/11/40-gunmen-armed-with-assault-rifles-terrorize-gun-control-group-at-a-texas-restaurant/

    The pro-gun nuts, after a number of critical bloggers and news site articles, tried to claim that the 40 or so gun nuts were just posing for a picture outside that restaurant -- no harm, no foul, right? -- and that someone with an AGENDA took the picture that got the most attention.

    Nevermind that the gun nuts gathered there in the first place to intimidate the 4 women inside the restaurant...

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  4. Anonymous3:38 PM

    Haha Palin attacks Sean Parnell about the oil tax debate.

    http://www.newsminer.com/news/alaska_news/palin-defends-oil-tax-structure-she-championed/article_6436be30-d6fb-11e3-8661-001a4bcf6878.html

    "Well, bless his heart. Remember that Sean Parnell came from the oil industry. He was an employee of ConocoPhillips ... lobbying for the cause there. So perhaps that's ingrained in him," she said during her call-in appearance on the Bob and Mark show Wednesday."

    Well Sarah this might not work out so well for you in the end. How was it that you quit again?

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    1. "...Remember that Sean Parnell came from the oil industry. He was an employee of ConocoPhillips ... lobbying for the cause there. So perhaps that's ingrained in him...".

      And yet - he was good enough to take over from you (when YOU QUIT to chase a Hollywood paycheck) as the latest Alaska Governor. And you've previously praised him. Hmmmm....

      So, I ask you, Sarah - why didn't YOU consider his prior background - all of it, not just what you've noted above. Did you forget that Sean Parnell was an attorney working AGAINST the interests of the good people of Alaska and FOR the defendant Exxon Oil Company when the Valdez went aground?

      Can't have it both ways, Sarah.

      If he was good enough for you then - why isn't he good enough now? Because he's dissed your signature legislation? Oh, boo-hoo.

      Grow up and pull on your big girl panties, Bitchy Hollywood - take it like a girl, ya whiny little cub. You can dish it, but you can't take it.

      You can't simultaneously be a perpetual media victim / political roadkill AND be a big, strong, fearless mama grizzly... not with all the whining that you do, anyway...

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    2. Anonymous5:54 PM

      In Alaska the light governor primary is separate from the gubernatorial primary. After Parnell won the light governor primary and Sarah won the governor primary, then the two were thrown together on the same ticket. It wasn't exactly love at first sight. Palin not much liking educated oil lobbyists and oil company employees.

      Palin probably preferred Jerry Ward, but that don't matter much. And if she thought Parnell was going to screw with Alaska, then why did she annoit him governor by quitting? lol

      #kwitcherbitchinlousarah

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    3. Anonymous6:11 PM

      Forgot to mention that Jerry Ward was AIP for a while too.

      www.touchngo.com/sp/html/sp-4368.htm

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  5. Anonymous3:56 PM

    These aggressive 2nd Ammendment zealots are doing a fine job of making gun enthusiasts look like nuts. Reasonable gun owners should denounce these nuts. I know people who have concealed gun permits, and carry a weapon. No one is any the wiser. No one is freaked out by the display of weapons. It's pretty obvious that the people who are so in your face with their weapons get off on scaring people. If they want to carry, why don't they do it in a way that doesn't scare folks?

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  6. Anonymous4:18 PM

    Don’t Turn America Into a Shooting Gallery

    The firearms lobby wants people to understand the debate over gun rights as one dividing gun owners from the larger American public. But as former Bush speechwriter David Frum wrote last week in The Atlantic, at the vanguard of the gun rights movement is a small group of Americans who perceive themselves as being under siege by the modern world.

    He describes them as “a compact and self-conscious minority, for whom guns represent an ideology even more than a sport or hobby.”

    Republicans are nearly twice as likely to own a gun as Democrats are.

    White Americans are twice as likely to own a gun as nonwhite Americans.

    Among Americans under age 30, only about one in five owns a gun. Among Americans over age 50, one in three owns a gun.

    Nearly half of men own a gun; only 13 percent of women do.

    Southerners are 50 percent more likely to own a gun than Easterners, the South being the most gun-owning region and the East being the least.

    Add it all up, and the core gun constituency looks a lot like the Tea Party on the firing range: Two-thirds of American households own no guns at all. The vast majority of households that own a gun own only one. Opposing them, a small minority—about 6 percent of American households—have amassed 65 percent of the nation’s privately owned firearms. That group is very white, very Southern, and very conservative indeed.

    This small group is seized by a profound sense of loss and alienation from the American majority.

    That group is also highly politicized — they’re the driving force behind the organized gun rights movement.

    Frum’s distinction between gun zealots and the majority of gun owners is borne out by public opinion polls. As Cliff Schecter wrote in 2012, polls find that a majority of gun-owners are in favor of closing the gun-show loophole (85 percent of all gun owners, and 69 percent of NRA members). Eighty-two percent of NRA members believe that people on the federal terror watch list should be barred from buying firearms, a measure the organization opposed, and almost seven in 10 NRA members disagreed with the lobby’s efforts to prevent law enforcement from determining the origins of weapons used in crimes.

    Ultimately, the gun lobby is a serious threat to public safety, so a new campaign by Generation Progress rallies young people to push back against the NRA and its allies. The campaign for sensible gun safety laws is called #Fight4The33 — a nod to the 33 Americans who on average are murdered with a firearm every day.

    They’ve produced a moving and effective music video with recording artist Jon Batiste. Watch it below, and share it with your social networks.

    http://freakoutnation.com/2014/05/08/dont-turn-america-into-a-shooting-gallery/

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  7. Let's pray that the person who gets shot is one of them, just like all the kids we lose every day in their own homes playing with 'unloaded' guns and rifles. But everyone is 'so sorry' and can't be held accountable because it was 'an accident' that the four year shot his sister, or his dad, or his grandma. This is why they fight registration...they might have to face consequences for not being responsible for their killing machine when someone uses it to kill.

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  8. If Sandy Hook couldn't get our elected representatives to do anything about guns, I doubt a bystander getting shot by one of the strutting peacocks will have any effect either.

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  9. Anonymous6:42 PM

    Wyatt Earp made all citizens check their guns as soon as they rode into town, back in the freedom loving west. In fact, that was a fairly common policy in most towns. It is only a matter of time before open carry escalates to open gun fights. If only the retards brandishing their weapons were the ones murdered, most people could care less. Statistics show that more often than not, it is the uninvolved innocent that are the ones killed. Children included. If a person is carrying a weapon, they are already in the mindset that they are looking for any excuse to kill some one. This country is well past the tipping point on the issue of wide open gun issues.

    If the Federal Government can't legislate common sense gun laws, it is then time for communities to take on the ignorant, who preach the 2nd Amendment remedies. We are soon too reap what the NRA and ALEC have sown.

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  10. Anita Winecooler7:37 PM

    We have a huge problem in Pennsylvania with straw purchases, mostly from the Virginias. A while back, our local news sent 17 year olds to get open carry licenses, then openly bought guns, most of which didn't even comply with Open Carry laws to MINORS in mall parking lots. Of course the peacocks faces as well as the minors were pixelated, and the police sorted everything out, but where's the punishment?
    We have Gun Shows at Government Owned Armories as well as gun shops. Craig's list and list serves are used for pick up/payment etc. This has got to stop somewhere. Kids are out going to school, playing etc. Adults are going to work, shopping for groceries, etc. Whose rights trump theirs just because they carry guns?

    One of the profile points for killers is they start by torturing animals, then they sport hunt animals, then graduate to hunting men women and children. Guns are just the tools to keep their hands and clothes clean.

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  11. Anonymous8:03 PM

    Yessiree Bob! Because, you know, we all want to go back to the way America used to be...a lawless land and the wild west. It's such a bad thing that America became more civilized, I tell ya. What's next, a country filled with educated, compassionate, logical sissypants? Ya gotta have a BIG gun to get respect and the more bullets in the drum, the more respect ya get. Yahoo!!!

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  12. Anonymous10:36 PM

    I'd much rather see an "Open Nude" policy, given that, you know, we're born naked, not armed.

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  13. Anonymous3:28 AM

    I have wondered about what would happen if a couple of armed African Americans joined in the group of armed white guys strutting in front of the Jack In The Box restaurant. Would they be welcomed as fellow 2nd Amendment advocates? I have also wondered about the ethnicity of the people working or eating in the restaurant. Were the proud gun owners "showing off" in front of other whites or were they "showing off" (i.e., menacing) mostly non-whites? I suspect the latter. I also wonder what every would possess a man (because there are no women present) to behave in such an infantile, stupid way. Have they no shame at all?
    Beaglemom

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