14 Comments

1. Hume's Ghost  •  Apr 5, 2009 @12:17 am
   

   Back when we were guest posting at the original Unclaimed Territory I wrote a post about how Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter and the rest of their ilk have a corrosive effect on democracy because they promote a hatred of “liberals” that rivals traditional forms of ethnic, racial, and religious bigotry.

   Moran wrote a response to me that is almost exactly identical to the one he wrote to Blow. He called me a liar,dishonest, a crybaby etc.

   http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2006/06/21/tell-those-dirty-fascists-to-stop-the-name-calling/

   Somehow I doubt Jim Adkisson going out and killing “liberals” after listening to the very same eliminationists that I wrote about caused Moran a second thought.

2. Jack K., the Grumpy Forester  •  Apr 5, 2009 @12:42 am
   

   …I will probably be proven to be wrong (which is OK; I’m used to that), but this tragedy doesn’t have the feel of some crazed gun nut lashing out against the impending loss of his Second Amendment rights. It only sounds like a whacked-out gun nut with lots of personal issues. All that “liberals gonna take our guns” rhetoric and hatred is usually directed toward the jack-booted, black helicopter equipped federal government rather than local law enforcement.

   Having said that, the gun nut winger branch certainly has every self-serving right to be concerned, because an otherwise inexplicable assault on local law enforcement officers – following immediately on the heels of a brutal attack in New York – calls into serious question the gun nut winger branch’s slavish devotion to unrestricted ownership of an unrestricted array of firearms…

3. Bruce Campbell  •  Apr 5, 2009 @1:13 am
   

   I heard a conservative commentator on CNN Don Lemon show today say that Americans need guns as a counter measure to all the guns the government has. What kind of paranoia is that. When will USA grow up and join the civilized world. Wild west days are over. You have long ago slaughtered most of the natives and the bison. You no longer have to guard the slaves. History is meant to be history. Civilized nations in the 21st century are not awash with weapons. They trust their police and government to protect them.

4. Bruce Campbell  •  Apr 5, 2009 @1:29 am
   

   Will it ever end? http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/04/04/washington.children.shot/index.html

5. Hume's Ghost  •  Apr 5, 2009 @1:44 am
   

   “Wild west days are over.”

   Thanks to American mythology most people aren’t aware that the Wild west was settled with gun restrictions.

   “The West was not settled by the gun but by gun-control laws.” – Gary Wills, Reagan’s America

   http://aspen.conncoll.edu/politicsandculture/page.cfm?key=10

   I’m familiar with Wills’ views on the mythology of the gun from Reagan’s America, but that link summarizes a different book that Wills wrote on the topic.

6. erinyes  •  Apr 5, 2009 @9:56 am
   

   Gun sales in the “sunshine state” are at an all time high, the complaint I hear from gun totin’ people I know is that ammo is getting more expensive, as are the guns.

   A number of men I know and work with have recently obtained “carry permits”.
   Some are afraid Obama will “take their guns away”, others are worried we’re headed for a “road warrior” senario, a small group think that Americans can defend themselves from the soon to come “new world order”, where agents of the U.N. outlaw guns and station foreign soldiers on U.S. soil to control the angry masses forced into FEMA camps.

   My opinion is, I would not mind having a shotgun for home defense, but I don’t have the money to buy one , what with my wife’s commissions in the toilet, trying to put money away for my daughter’s education, etc; so if everything goes to shit, I’ll need to depend on my skill with pikepoles, axes, machetes, chainsaws, and Butch, the attack cat.
   Butch is so damned cute, that when an interloper bends down to pet him, I’ll hog tie the criminal and torture him with NPR music until the authorities arrive.( give him a real bad haircut to boot).

   Some guys I know are thinking they could off the “feds” or U.N troops with their Glocks and AR15’s. I guess they’re not thinking about the “other side” having Apachee attack helicopters, hellfire missiles, predator and reaper drones, and various chemical/biological elixers awaiting in test tubes to be “uncorked”.

   The real and underlying fear is that we have a black man at the helm.
   I am ashamed and sickened at how many people I know make rude comments and jokes about Obama nd his wife.
   Bush, the guy they’d like to have a beer with, created—-or at least allowed this mess to start and snow ball out of control. People have been sent to prison for far less than what Bush/Cheney did. Ask Martha Stewart…………

7. joanr16  •  Apr 5, 2009 @10:05 am
   

   [T]his tragedy doesn’t have the feel of some crazed gun nut lashing out against the impending loss of his Second Amendment rights.

   Except, Jack, the Pittsburgh shooter said it was. I see no reason to reach for other motives when a criminal states his or her intent and thinking in clear language.

   Is the Pittsburgh shooter wrong about the threat to his arsenal? Unfortunately, yes. Does that make him mentally ill? Based on the many thousands– perhaps a few million– who believe the same and are otherwise functional: unfortunately, no.

   From Bruce Campbell:

   I heard a conservative commentator on CNN… today say that Americans need guns as a counter measure to all the guns the government has.

   The gun worshipers often may picture “the jack-booted, black helicopter equipped federal government, rather than local law enforcement” when they say cave-trollish sh*t like that, but the fact is, the first armed government employee they’ll take a bead on is a local police officer. Your white-skinned, right-wing, gun-fondling American is about to become the chief cop killer in this country, when the explosion of paranoia happens.

8. joanr16  •  Apr 5, 2009 @10:09 am
   

   Oh, and someone should point out to the gun worshipers that “the jack-booted, black helicopter equipped” entity would in fact be Blackwater (or whatever they’re calling themselves these days), a private army owned by an American fascist who was a close collaborator of Bushco.

9. Swami  •  Apr 5, 2009 @11:40 am
   

   Does that make him mentally ill?

   Well, I’ve done the American macho combat ready Minute Man thing. And I’ll attest that it is a form of mental illness..It’s insecurity that finds peace in fantasy…and it is an illness well disguised.. I mean, what use could I possibly have for an assault weapon, or a 12 gauge pump action riot gun, or a high powered snipers rifle? The desire feeds from insecurity…. and that’s not healthy.

10. joanr16  •  Apr 5, 2009 @12:25 pm
    

    Swami, I’d agree that irrational paranoia and the relative comfort of delusion aren’t healthy. But there’s a certain “norm” that has always existed in this country among racists, domestic abusers, gay-bashers, “heretic” and “communist” persecutors, and run-of-the-mill losers who blame everyone but themselves for their sad lives– and the Pittsburgh guy seems to fit perfectly into that old “norm.” You won’t find that condition in any psychiatric casebook. “Mental illness” would be just one more lame excuse, imo.

11. moonbat  •  Apr 5, 2009 @1:42 pm
    

    The gunman did say he was afraid Obama was going to take away his guns, but I’d say there are a lot of personal issues underneath all of this. People often have a surface reason for being angry, but in so many cases there are deeper, other causes for the anger, a submerged, vast pool of rage. Demagogues dial in to all this hidden rage and channel it, say toward imagined actions Obama is taking/is said to be taking.

    In road rage, it’s not an obnoxious action driver A “did” to driver B, it’s all the stuff driver B brings to the highway that makes driver B act out.

    This doesn’t excuse taking action based on surface reasons, it just tries to explain it.

    I have a lot of connections to Pittsburgh, having grown up a hundred or so miles away. I just wonder how this cop killing is going to play in a town that’s still pretty heavily blue collar and cop-supporting. I wonder if they are going to turn against the right wingers, or whether the right will be deft enough to come up with some believable way to deflect the attention.

    I also wonder how soon before the national media connects the dots between all these killings (if it ever does), beginning (at least) with Adkisson who killed the UU churchgoers in Knoxville because they were liberals (his words). I’d expect to see it first on Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert intstead of our cowardly and worthless media. I’m sure these gifted men are trying to figure out ways to work this into their routine.

12. c u n d gulag  •  Apr 5, 2009 @6:06 pm
    

    This is the result of the seeds that Glenn Beck, and others of his ilk, have sown for years.

    Hey Glenn, want to tell the widow’s of the Pittsburgh police how ‘you sorround them?’ How thankful they should feel for patriots like you fueling the flames of hate?
    Congratulations, Glenn, your ratings just shot up.
    Go ahead Glenn, take a bow…

13. CabinInThe Woods  •  Apr 6, 2009 @10:01 am
    

    http://www.alice-miller.com/flyers_en.php?page=7

14. pat mallory  •  Apr 6, 2009 @10:43 am
    

    What freedoms have we sacrificed for this insane idea that everyone must be armed? What about freedom of speech, freedom to assemble? Or just plain
    freedom from fear?