17 thoughts on “Stuff to Read”

  1. Chait:
    The psychology on display here is familiar to anybody who has seen a petulant teenager, who assumes that any restriction that causes them to feel anger must have been intended to produce that emotion. Republicans are feeling humiliated and divided, so Obama’s goal must have been to humiliate and divide them.

    Seems to me Obama’s goal has always been to clean up the GOP’s mess whether they pitch in and help or not. Sargent’s assessment of how this is killing the GOP in public opinion makes for some satisfying reading.

  2. Way OT: Another school shooting. This time, an ELEMENTARY school in CT! Reports are that anywhere from 2 to over a dozen people are dead and/or wounded. As for how many of them are children, no one knows at this time – or they’re not saying.

    http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/14/shooting-reported-at-connecticut-elementary-school/?hpt=hp_t1

    I can’t help it, I almost got sick to my stomach, and I started crying – and I can’t stop.

    And, of course, the shooter is dead, and beyond the reach of whatever limited justice we’d care to mete out – which, whatever it would be, would be too fuckin’ little, and too fuckin’ late.

    If I lived in another country, I wouldn’t even think of coming here as a tourist. We are proving to the world that we’re a nation of armed and dangerous yahoo’s, who refuse to do anything at all when people are shot haphazardously – even fucking CHILDREN!

    May I repsectfully suggest that we grab Wayne LaPierre of the NRA, bring him the this school, and let the parents of the children killed, wounded, or psychologicaly traumatized, do with him whatever they want, for as long as they want?

    Of course, I’m just ‘shooting off my mouth’ – which is a lot less harmful than a gun. But I can sure understand why “Frontier Justice” has its appeal.

  3. Mass shooting in CT

    It’s too bad all of the kids in school were not armed, that way they could have taken the shooter out. Guns don’t kill people do. Arm the children now!

  4. Yesterday holiday shoppers, today grade-school children.

    And yes, of course the NRA and Fox Noise will be saying “Arm everybody.”

    One day maybe we’ll wake up and see that view for the psychosis it is.

  5. “One day maybe we’ll wake up and see that view for the psychosis it is”

    The funny thing is that I never heard any of the wingers say that Travon Martin or Jordan Davis should have been armed, hmmmmm?

  6. If we can’t outlaw guns, why can’t we outlaw bullets?

    There’s no Constitutional right to have a bullet.

    If bullet’s were outlawed, only outlaw’s would have bullets.

  7. There’s no Constitutional right to have a bullet.

    Hey, you’re right! It says we have the right to “bear arms.” Long, shaggy, rigor mortis-y bear arms. We can whack our enemies with them, rake those razor-sharp claws against an opponent’s face, sneak up behind folks we casually dislike and do unnerving surprise shoulder-taps. And that is all. Nothin’ in here about “bullets.”

    Strictly construct that, Scalia!

  8. Now, seriously: I thought maybe the Aurora mass murder would spark the long-overdue popular uprising against the NRA. But, no such luck. The dead were buried, the crazy clown guy is in jail, the public moved on. Will this event spark the uprising (“Americans Against Unfettered Gun Access”)? Well, already we’ve got Jay Carney saying “Today isn’t the day for a gun control debate.”

    With mass killings occurring day after day, the proper occasion for that debate will never come. So: Shut up, Jay. Let’s have that debate right now.

  10. Another idea:
    Since the Bill of Rights was written in 1787, why not limit, for average
    citizens, replica’s of guns available back then?

    Everyone can have as many flint-lock pistols, muzzlebusters, and long-rifles, that they want. To shoot them, before firing, they’d have to put a ball put in, after having put in the gunpowder, and then tamping it all down, and then pulling the trigger.

    That would work for me.
    Try hiding a muzzlebuster in your pocket.

  11. I have been saying for years that there is no constitutional right to bullets and they should be outlawed. No it would not fix the problem for many years as the gun nuts have both stocked themselves with enough ammo to take out a small nation AND they claim that they” will simply make their own”, but that is no excuse, no reason not to do it. Eventually they will run out of ammo and even if it takes 100 years to solve the problem that way it would certainly be better than doing nothing.

    As I walked into the house to write this, insannity reported that the total now stands at 26, which includes an entire class of kindergarteners. My current partner lost a child and I have to tell you,he will never be the same.I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy the hell he has been sentenced to for life. Those parents of these lost children have my heart felt deepest sympathy. My heart just aches to think of what they must now face. I cried so hard in the car driving home I thought I would have to pull over. Their deaths is only part of what got me.. what really kills me is that when the last shooting happened ( and the one before that and the one before that) we gave lip service as a nation to how heartbroken we were for the victims and their families but we didn’t care enough to take the steps to stop it from happening again today.

    No more fucking saying “I am sorry” because we are not. If we were we would have done something so we just were not sorry enough as a nation. Sorry doesn’t cut it for the families with presents under the tree for their baby who will never open them, sorry doesn’t mean a damn thing if there are not actions that follow the words.

    So I am gonna say it again and again and again .. just like I have before. There is no Constitutional right to bullets. Repeat it here, there and everywhere until the truth sinks in to the rest of the world. And don’t tell me it is too soon to have this conversation.. because frankly it is LONG over due. Or should we wait till the next class room of children gets killed, would that work better for those who think it is too soon?

  12. Greg Palast wrote a book several years ago entitled “Armed Madhouse” I think that pretty much sums it up.
    This place is going bonkers. We have a new movie out that is giving the thumbs up to torture, we seem to have mass shootings every month (at least), I hear people saying they are in favor of drug testing welfare and food stamp recipients, in Florida,. some dimwit state rep wants to pass a bill requiring “Bright Future” scholarship students to pay the state back if they take a job out of state.Crazy teabaggers want to attack “entitlements”. Man, this place is some kinda screwed up.
    I don’t recall more guns ever stoping a mass shooting spree.

  13. In the 1700s, American parents instructed their children how to watch for the signs of smallpox, and what to do if someone in the household displayed symptoms.

    Up until 1865, African-American parents instructed their children on how to find The Drinking Gourd in the sky, and evade slavecatchers as they made their way north.

    In the 20th Century, American mothers (not often enough) instructed their daughters how to recognize potential date rapists and domestic abusers.

    After 1945, American parents taught their kids to duck and cover if The Bomb fell.

    After 2001, Americans taught their kids to watch for brown people as potential terrorists (while not enough parents ever taught their kids to watch out for the local priest).

    Now American parents have to teach their children how to look for ways out of a movie theatre, school, shopping mall, hospital, library, place of worship, restaurant, workplace– pretty much anywhere they ever go– in case some lunatic in camos, strapped with half a dozen automatic weapons, strides into the place with murder in mind.

    Some “civilization” we have here.

  14. “Now American parents have to teach their children how to look for ways out of a movie theatre, school, shopping mall…,pretty much anywhere they ever go– in case some lunatic in camos, strapped with half a dozen automatic weapons, strides into the place with murder in mind.”
    In terms of technological solutions, maybe metal detectors in public places aren’t good enough anymore. Maybe we need something that will pick up likely weapons over a wider area.

  15. I really wonder if I can continue to live in this society. We will never be safe. We will never be progressive. I’m sorry, I’m giving up.

  16. In my previous life I worked with a lot of people who were injured by gunshot, GSW is the way we referred to it in our case notes. The results were most often spinal cord injury or traumatic brain injury. On one end of the spectrum there were totally innocent victims, on the other, people who really kind of brought it on themselves. By the numbers the most, by far were toward the innocent end. In any case they were different people when they came to me, different than they had been. They’d been reborn through traumatic injury, near death and a long slog back to some kind of life. Their old lives had been swept away and they had to find something to put in its place.

    I hate it when some clown makes a joke about shooting someone, or cradles a gun in a fever dream, wishing for a bigger, more deadly one. They’re living in a creepy video game and who knows where their real lives have gone? It’s just not funny anymore.

    Ah hell, this isn’t making any sense. This is how I feel:

    http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/12/14/165640/84

Comments are closed.