Why do we put up with this shit?

Why do we put up with this shit?  The lies, distortions and deranged thinking of the NRA and their gunzloonz disciples--why do we not say, "No. Enough, it's time to stop the insanity."?

 

This:

"Out of respect for the families, and as a matter of common decency, we have given time for mourning, prayer and a full investigation of the facts before commenting," the NRA said in its statement."

is from here (http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/nra-breaks-silence-horrific-senseless-newtown-massacre-214755738--politics.html)

Out of respect. Bullshit. Out of shame? highly unlikely. Out of some nagging sense that lying for a living might have a down side? Nah.

Because they knew that the shitstorm that erupted after friday's massacere in Newtowne, CT, last weekend would have been "The Perfect Storm" of deserved derision and contempt from most of the people who live in the U.S. or are even aware of what happened--including most of the people who own guns? Yeah, more believable, by far.

Wayne LaPierre turned what was a cottage industry of pandering to the paranoid gunzloonies worried about their penis substitutes being taken away by the MAN into a hugely profitable (for him and a few other folks) industry. He has made millions of dollars for himself and the firearms industry, by playing to the fears of a small but frighteningly well armed, unregulated militia

Actually Wayne's Warriors are more like the "Regulators" of the period between the U.S. Civil War and the beginning of the 20th Century. They're well armed and full of self-righteousness about their mission to ensure the arming of every man, woman and child in the U.S. That they are dead wrong would be hilarious if they weren’t so deadly (and had such lousy impulse control).

You're reading this and thinking, "Damn" That democommie, sometimes he just doesn't know when he's a little "over the top". Well, in this case, I do—and I’m not.

In my "conversations" with teh gunzloonz, ESPECIALLY over at mikeb’s blog,  I have been told many, many times that there is no age limit on when someone can own a gun--and that there can't ever be one. Perhaps that is why they don’t think that a toddler killing a sibling or themselves with an improperly secured, loaded gun is a cause for concern.

I have been told many, many times that "An armed society is a polite society", with no data to offer in support of such a nonsensical premise. Quite the contrary in fact, there are numerous reports, daily, about people with guns--especially handguns—issuing threats, menacing others and, unfortunately shooting them.

I have been told many, many times that the fact that a majority of U.S. suicides are accomplished with a gun is misleading because they would kill themselves, anyway, using a different “tool”. People who’ve actually done a study of the situation, like these folks (http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/160/10/929.full) disagree and DO have some data to work with.

I have been told many, many times that I am SAFER when there are more guns in my neighborhood, despite that many very well armed places—Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq come to mind—experience horrific violence, involving LOTS OF GUNZ.

I have been told many, many times, particularly after every mass shooting since, at least, Columbine that the way to prevent school shootings, church shootings, shootings in government buildings and every other imaginable venue is to ARM teachers, public servants, parishioners and pastors and, well, EVERYFUCKINGBODY! This is said without any elaboration of who will be paying for the training, arming and tracking of such a program. 

I have been told many, many times that there are DGU’s (Defensive Gun Use) , thousands of them every day, in the U.S.  I see, very rarely, any news coverage of those DGU’s and find the idea that the NRA wouldn’t have a website dedicated specifically to trumpeting the success of their plan to arms the entire U.S. population a huge success, with the stories of those millions of DGU’s  retold to their fawning admirers. Such a website does not exist, afaia. The primary reason for that is most probably because there aren’t enough legitimate DGU’s for them to launch one. It would be like me starting a blog about the accomplishments of Michelle Bachman.

I have been told many, many, many, many, way too fucking many times that gun owners, as a class are more responsible, more law abiding, more cognizant of what constitutes danger and how to deal with it (ALWAYS using a gun in some way). The thousands of reported incidents involving guns and the idiots who shoot inanimate objects, themselves, their friends and their loved ones while cleaning, showing or fooling around with UNLOADED weapons gives the lie to that meme.

I have been told all of the above, and a number of other things that PROVE “gunz are good”  by fervent gunzloonz, many of them hundreds of times and yet, when pressed they have NO genuine statistical data to back up any of these “factual statements”.

What they consider to be settled law and established fact is, in reality, nonsense that they wish was true. It is also nonsense that is out there in gunzloonzland because it’s been put there by the NRA and assorted groups/individuals which stand to make money from the arms business or who have an axe to grind with government. 

President Obama, during his presidential campaign of 2008, spoke off the cuff—inadvertently telling the truth—when he said this:

(April 6, 2008): “You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

 

during a campaign appearance in Pennsylvania.

Since November, 2008 the religious right; militant opponents of immigration; anti-tax ,  anti-gay, anti-choice groups; conspiracy minded Obama haters, formerly silent racists and pro-gun fanatics (the gunzloonz) have spawned the Teabag Party, The Minuteman Militia and other groups whose sole purpose is to obstruct the U.S. government’s efforts to reform immigration, tax, firearms and equality legislation or overturn existing laws.

I think it is not a coincidence that the states that have permissive firearms laws and “Stand your ground” laws of some sort are also states that are opposed to women having freedom of choice and the ability to have an abortion on demand.

A comparison of a map of those U.S. states with “Stand your ground/Castle doctrine” laws* and those with laws restricting a woman’s freedom of choice in reproductive matters** show that while not all states with the latter also have the former, few if any that have the former don’t have the latter.

It is also important to note that most anti-science legislators at both the state and federal level come from those states with both sets of laws in place***.

Many of those states with “Stand your ground/Caste doctrine” laws, anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-evolution science (and science in other areas) laws and attempts by lawmakers to put into law practices which violate the U.S. Constitution’s “Anti-establishment” clause were in the CSA, the confederate states that seceded from the union in 1861. Of all states in the former CSA only four do not have “Stand your ground” laws****/*****. Of those four without stand your ground laws, three do have “Castle doctrine laws”. And of those without one of those two laws only VA appears to have “duty to retreat”.

Hmmm, this is gonna take a LOT longer than I thought. I’ll be back with more on this, later.

In the meantime, this:

http://www.readyholster.com/blog/

is what gunzloonery is all about, the fetishization of firearms, ammo, accessories and memorabilia.

I wonder if they’d like to send an e-card with that photo and a note about how they’re making the U.S. a safer place for all of us to the people who lost children and other loved ones in the massacere at the Sandy Hook School in Newtowne, CT, last Friday?

*               http://pursuitmag.com/united-states-stand-your-ground-and-castle-doctrine-laws-by-state/                  

 

**             http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/15/1/gpr150114.html

***          Best piece I can find with a quick search is here (http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/15/1/gpr150114.html) I’ll update it when I find a better one.

****        http://pursuitmag.com/united-states-stand-your-ground-and-castle-doctrine-laws-by-state/  (this and the following link are to differing maps, ymmv on which is more accurate.

*****       http://www.readyholster.com/blog/stand-your-ground-gun-laws-infographic.