The Words of Wayne LaPierre
Wayne LaPierre at the National Rifle Association press conference this morning:
And here’s another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal. There exists in this country, sadly, a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and stows violence against its own people. Through vicious, violent video games with names like “Bullet Storm,” “Grand Theft Auto,” “Mortal Combat,” and “Splatterhouse.”
And here’s one, it’s called “Kindergarten Killers.” It’s been online for 10 years. How come my research staff can find it, and all of yours couldn’t? Or didn’t want anyone to know you had found it? Add another hurricane, add another natural disaster. I mean we have blood-soaked films out there, like “American Psycho,” “Natural Born Killers.” They’re aired like propaganda loops on Splatterdays and every single day.
1,000 music videos, and you all know this, portray life as a joke and they play murder — portray murder as a way of life. And then they all have the nerve to call it entertainment. But is that what it really is? Isn’t fantasizing about killing people as a way to get your kicks really the filthiest form of pornography? In a race to the bottom, many conglomerates compete with one another to shock, violate, and offend every standard of civilized society, by bringing an even more toxic mix of reckless behavior, and criminal cruelty right into our homes. Every minute, every day, every hour of every single year.
A child growing up in America today witnesses 16,000 murders, and 200,000 acts of violence by the time he or she reaches the ripe old age of 18. And, throughout it all, too many in the national media, their corporate owners, and their stockholders act as silent enablers, if not complicit co-conspirators.
Rather than face their own moral failings, the media demonize gun owners
Rather than face — rather than face their own moral failings the media demonize lawful gun owners, amplify their cries for more laws, and fill the national media with misinformation and dishonest thinking that only delay meaningful action, and all but guarantee that the next atrocity is only a news cycle away.
The media calls semi-automatic fire arms, machine guns. They claim these civilian semi-automatic fire arms are used by the military. They tell us that the .223 is one of the most powerful rifle calibers, when all of these claims are factually untrue, they don’t know what they’re talking about.
Worse, they perpetuate the dangerous notion that one more gun ban or one more law imposed on peaceable, lawful people will protect us where 20,000 other laws have failed.
As brave and heroic and as self-sacrificing as those teachers were in those classrooms and as prompt and professional and well- trained as those police were when they responded, they were unable — through no fault of their own, unable to stop it.
As parents we do everything we can to keep our children safe. It’s now time for us to assume responsibility for our schools. The only way — the only way to stop a monster from killing our kids is to be personally involved and invested in a plan of absolute protection.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
Would you rather have your 911 call bring a good guy with a gun from a mile away or from a minute away?
Now, I can imagine the headlines, the shocking headlines you’ll print tomorrow. “More guns,” you’ll claim, “are the NRA’s answer to everything.” Your implication will be that guns are evil and have no place in society, much less in our schools.
But since when did “gun” automatically become a bad word? A gun in the hands of a Secret Service agent protecting our president isn’t a bad word. A gun in the hands of a soldier protecting the United States of America isn’t a bad word. And when you hear your glass breaking at three a.m. and you call 9/11, you won’t be able to pray hard enough for a gun in the hands of a good guy to get there fast enough to protect you.
So, why is the idea of a gun good when it’s used to protect the president of our country or our police, but bad when it’s used to protect our children in our schools? They’re our kids. They’re our responsibility. And it’s not just our duty to protect them, it’s our right to protect them.
You know, five years ago after the Virginia Tech tragedy, when I said we should put armed security in every school, the media called me crazy. But what if — what if when Adam Lanza started shooting his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School last Friday, he’d been confronted by qualified armed security? Will you at least admit it’s possible that 26 little kids, that 26 innocent lives might have been spared that day? Is it so important to you (inaudible) would rather continue to risk the alternative? Is the press and the political class here in Washington D.C. so consumed by fear and hatred of the NRA and American gun owners, that you’re willing to accept the world, where real resistance to evil monsters is alone, unarmed school principal left to surrender her life, her life, to shield those children in her care.
No one. No one, regardless of personal, political prejudice has the right to impose that sacrifice.
No comment necessary.
Feel vindicated, Erik. You were right all along.
Wayne LaPierre raps.
Rarely have I felt such a need for a shower. No stick, pikestaff or bayonet deserves the fucker’s putrid head.
Oh Jesus fucking Christ!
I have no words beyond that.
What an exemplary human being!
“Isn’t fantasizing about killing people as a way to get your kicks really the filthiest form of pornography?”
Funny, that’s just the question I would ask of many NRA members.
+1000000000000 … and a bunch more zeroes.
Stacked exponents are the way to go
Why, you can even buy an official NRA human silhouette target.
Let me guess–it has protruding ears. amirite?
NRA/NAMBLA–Has snybody seen them in the same (darkened) room at the same time?
Nope, and they both want to introduce kids to their, um, “weapons”…
Although, as far as I know, the Trayvon Martin targets were not endorsed in any way by the NRA. I’m pretty sure it was the NRA’s idea of a “good guy with a gun” that was buying them, however.
Money means never having to say you’re wrong.
Wow. I expected something objectionable, but wow.
If we create a national database for the mentally ill, can LaPierre be the first one entered?
Fortunately, the NRA has already done the heavy lifting by compiling a membership list.
Not once, not once in these threads has anyone blamed the shooter, or if he’s not responsible because of his mental issues, those who were responsible for him access to their weapons. They knew he was crazy.
It’s back to the same old personal responsibility vs no-one’s-to-blame argument.
And if you wish to take an even larger macro view of the problem, you might want to ask yourself why this obviously crazy and dangerous person was not in an institution.
Everyone of these mass murderers have mental issues. All of ‘em. Part of a comprehensive solution is a move toward profiling crazies and forced hospitalization instead of the current trend of mainstreaming all.
Another facet might include suing those who allow these crazies access to their legally purchased weapons, or their estates if they’re dead as well.
While I’m willing to discuss gun control, no one here wants to discuss anything *but* gun control. They’re not really serious about solutions and, instead, look at this as an opportunity to politicize this tragedy and push their long held desire for more gun control.
And if you wish to take an even larger macro view of the problem, you might want to ask yourself why this obviously crazy and dangerous person was not in an institution.
Fucking hell, Jennie. We know why. We are not as woefully ignorant as you.
While I’m willing to discuss gun control
You seem to be laboring under the mistaken assumption that we are talking to you, rather than laughing at you.
Good LAWD!
You’re an old fat queer with no job that’s also an admitted commie and you think the laughter is directed at others?
Really?
Pure, unadulterated evil.
So actual firearms such as Ronnie Barrett’s .50-caliber civilian sniper rifle, 30-bullet magazines for semi-automatic rifles, etc, etc, are the very fount of safety, decency, and liberty; but imaginary firearms on a computer screen are a horrifying, corrupting influence that must be stopped? Good thing the First Amendment isn’t a suicide pact, eh, Wayne, you blood-drenched psychopathic monster?
Important follow-up: As far as I know, Wayne LaPierre, outrageously vile morally-bankrupt horror though he is, is not usually literally blood-drenched. It’s apparently essential to clear that up for right-wing stupid fucks.
But, you don’t know. He very well might be. Or he could just be occasionally blood drenched. How are we to know?
Only during his “special time”.
Fantasizing about killing someone is the filthiest form of pornography, unless you first fantasize that they deserve it. Then its all good.
Gun nuts, like death penalty enthusiasts, are voyeurs in the bedroom of an angry god.
I watched almost the whole presser, and just a few moments in I asked myself, “They had a whole week to put together a response and have LaPierre rehearse, and this is the best they can do?”
Train wrecks, all the way down. LaPierre sounded shaken, confused, and cranky–senile I guess. What the hell was the reference to hurricanes contributing to violence, at least twice? How does an organization improve its favorability with the public by flinging out-and-out insults at the very conduit to the audience, the press? Why in the world did they decide to show the kindergarten killer Flash (TM) game and call the press out on underreporting its existence, ten years after the fact?
And when you get down to it, why address hurricanes, movies, television, and video games–imaginary violence (hell, throw in graphic novels while you’re at it, Wayne. In for a dime…)–when the issue is real violence done to real people just one real week ago?
I think Erik might have just got what he was asking for a few days ago. Wayne LaPierre hoist his his own head upon a stick for all the world to see. The PR disaster that was his press conference will have eroded support from even his membership that I don’t believe he’ll last very long in his current position.
I won’t miss him.
Well, then, he obviously needs to be fired for threatening himself.
Don’t you understand that when hurricanes take place, roaming gangs of angry negroes roam the streets killing white people–just like after Hurricane Katrina!!!*
This kind of race-hysteria is what LaPierre was referring to. The people who wanted to hear that line knew what they heard.
* Please note that this my imitation of racists, not my actual beliefs.
But if you read the rantings of one “Fen” at the bottom of the last “Erik Loomis is History’s Greatest Monster” thread, “Gun control rants” are responsible for dead children
Yep, I suspect that’s what he was referring to with that line – extra-ironic since the most notable mob violence post-Katrina was NRA-loving good ol’ boys acting out their favorite fantasies…
No kidding.
Did he think this little performance was going to help his cause?
Don’t they have PR people at the NRA?
Don’t they have PR people at the NRA?
Perhaps they hired some from the Romney campaign.
“…and then before that, I was the one who convinced John McCain to spent two weeks telling everyone that Barack Obama wanted to spread the wealth.”
Don’t they have PR people at the NRA?
They have money and Congresscritters, why would they need PR?
I’m pretty sure they just assumed arming themselves with guns would solve this problem.
+1
LaPierre sounded shaken, confused, and cranky–senile I guess.
To be fair, for all he knew Erik was in the audience with a concealed halberd.
Was it a switch halberd?
You know, whenever I hear Wayne LaPierre endorse something I think might maybe be a good idea (qualified armed security at schools) I then immediately re-evaluate it. Fully.
He’s not endorsing it, really, unless he advocates a biggish VAT on guns to pay for it. ;-)
That’s not such a bad idea. Just keep increasing the VAT and the corresponding security quality until things adjust to an acceptable level. If that level is: hardly anyone has a gun, fantastic!
His crony suggested a George Zimmerman on every playground:
See, without context, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea.
Off-duty cops, retired or off-duty military personnel, rescue workers… these are guys who are well-trained pros, and encouraging them to volunteer their time watching over kids in public spaces sounds okay to me.
(Assuming they aren’t walking around in full riot gear.)
From Wikipedia, the key to understanding these people:
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes
Off-duty cops, retired or off-duty military personnel, rescue workers… these are guys who are well-trained pros, and encouraging them to volunteer their time watching over kids in public spaces sounds okay to me.
“That’s fine, Mr McVeigh. You can park your truck right over there.”
I remember reading a Tea Party group explicitly invoking George Zimmerman in that context. Insane.
Again Loomis engages in the dirty politics of quoting a conservative’s own words. Have you no shame?
Moloch wept.
I honestly don’t get the bits about the Secret Service, police, soldiers, etc. Those guys are highly trained and have very strict accountability for using their guns! I think most liberals would do back flips if average gun owners had do undergo similar training and had their gun use under such scrutiny.
As an additional point: the highest priority of Secret Service agents isn’t whipping out their guns and returning fire; it’s getting their protectee away from the shooter.
The attempt on Ronald Reagan is a perfect example. As soon as you hear the shot, the Secret Service agent in the center of the frame is running forward to push Reagan into the car. Off camera, other agents are already tackling — not shooting! — Hinckley. Reagan is loaded into the limo so fast that the camera doesn’t even catch it; by the time it swings back from the dogpile on Hinckley, the car is pulling away.
That tackling part was learned from the Kamakazie Kommando Kiddies coached by McMegan.
She’d be right about the tackling part, if we could only get our elementary school students to be physically fit adults with years of hand-to-hand combat training and lightning-fast reflexes. The feminization of American society strikes again.
Didn’t the shooter of Gabby Giffords get tackled as he was reloading?
And then nearly get shot by one of the other people carrying?
McMegan’s idea is a black hole of stupidity, but tackling spree shooters while they’re reloading or otherwise occupied has a better track record than shooting back.
Agreed; tackling has a much better record than shooting. The guy who tackled Giffords’ shooter actually had a concealed carry permit, and was carrying, but he had the good sense to realize that shooting back at the shooter would just create chaos and probably get him shot. The perfect NRA straw man hypothetical, ruined by common sense.
The big problem with tackling as a solution is that we, as a society are willing to accept that a bunch of highly compensated adults can choose to lay down their lives to protect the president. Fucking McMegan can’t be bothered to think about that part of the equation.
Shit, you’re almost making it sound like a, a… well-regulated militia or something. That’s crazy talk.
Wayne’s just doing his job. Every minute of tv bloviation and every column-inch of editorializing about him is time and space not spent on Bushmaster, Colt, Ruger, etc. He’s acting like a pinata because he’s well-paid to act like a pinata. Who cares if the NRA gets turned into a smoking crater? Firearms manufacturers will love a long, bitter fight about assault rifles, ’cause they’ll sell every single one they make at full retail–and if you don’t think there’s going to be a price jump on January 1 you’re smoking something.
Yuhp
The word “divestment” needs to be included in every conversation about guns from now until ever
Yesterday’s Baton Rouge Advocate front page story: “BR gun sales rise on fear of upcoming restrictions”: http://theadvocate.com/home/4726081-125/br-gun-sales-up-on
Face it: for gun manufacturers and retail outlets, Newtown was good for business.
Slaughter has always been good for business. A certain kind of human sees it, and his first, instinctive response is “opportunity!”.
Face it: for gun manufacturers and retail outlets, Newtown was good for business.
The core issue that’s driving gun sales is the longstanding fear of the gun-grabbing Democrats and the knowledge that they will politicize and use the murders in Newtown to achieve their longstanding goal of gun control.
Yes, that’s obviously the real tragedy here.
The core issue that’s driving gun sales is diaper-wearing paranoid little freaks like you.
Indeed. Your sick little cause just took a devastating hit.
In your shoes, or LaPierr’s, I’d be panicky, too.
Speaking as a liberal, nothing fills me with dread quite so much as the idea that LaPierre will start a massive campaign against both Democrats and gun control. Once you combine LaPierre’s near-Romnney’like ability to connect with the populace with the common-sense notion that everybody needs to fire off 30 rounds without reloading, there will be no way at all the Democrats don’t lose the Senate in 2014, with Obama’s impeachment sure to follow. This message is a winner, and we should fear it.
When I think of the NRA being closely equated with the Republican Party, it fills me with rage – but sort of an impotent rage.
Speaking as a liberal.
Yeah duder, we get it. You wet your bed at the idea of the democratic process. It does not make you look like nearly the tough guy you seem to think it does.
What a pussy.
Yep. The Merchants of Death are playing you like the chumps you are. I hope you keep wasting all your money on weapons you do not need, do not know how to use, and will eventually shot yourself or a family member with.
Shorter Wayne LaPierre:
We need community watch volunteers in every school.
(What can possibly go wrong?)
Congress should announce that they’ll be voting on LaPierre’s idea on Monday morning. I can’t imagine it would get votes from anyone to the left of Louie Gohmert.
Kurtyboy – I’ll be interested to see what this does to LaPierre’s standing with his own. My prediction is that the NRA/Gun Owners of America true believers fall right in line behind him, but they’re going to get a bit of a lesson in how much less effective all that money becomes if the rest of the country is opposed and starts to really care about the issue.
Other than the blame video games/blame movies part, this is basically boilerplate gun nut. They would especially like the part where he references media people mixing up semi-auto and auto and bullet caliber.
Now, I can imagine the headlines, the shocking headlines you’ll print tomorrow. “More guns,” you’ll claim, “are the NRA’s answer to everything.” Your implication will be that guns are evil and have no place in society, much less in our schools.
For once, I hope LaPierre is right.
And, throughout it all, too many in the national media, their corporate owners, and their stockholders act as silent enablers, if not complicit co-conspirators.
Hopefully, this will help spur them on.
It’s like he doesn’t realize those corporate owners are HIS corporate owners.
“It would be better if the mentally ill wore a badge on their clothing so that we can prepared to shoot them.” -Wayne LaPierre, probably
Maybe he’d have stopped shooting others and shot himself, instead.
Or maybe not.
This is what gun nuts fail to understand: even if there is a highly-trained security guard/police officer/soldier on site at the time of a shooting, chances are that people will have already died or been wounded before he or she is able to take effective action.
So the question is: how do you ask someone to be the first one to die for a mistake?
No way man. Everyone should be packing. Mom, Grandma, the little kids, everyone. And you should be eying people all the time to see if they are planning something, and if they are you better be faster on the draw.
When Adam Lanza started shooting last Friday, his first target was a heavily armed, well-trained shooter. She ended up just as dead as everyone else.
But see, she was his mom, so it was totally her fault.
Because Columbine never happened, or at the very least, the armed security officer who was there didn’t actually exist.
And of course, this never happened.
I’d say he shot himself in the foot.
To bad he did not aim higher.
The NRA is doing an amazingly bad PR job; they should just offer compassion-exuding platitudes, blame the mother for allowing her son to get to her weapons, and quietly kill arms control legislation behind the scenes. You’d think they’d get better PR consultants with their bijillions of dollars.
Please to be explaining how this hurts them with anyone who wasn’t against them already.
Motivation.
It encourages their existing enemies, and turns convincible people in the middle against them.
It also galvanizes support among the true believers, and there are at least 218 of those in the House right now. This was really about firming up legislative support, not about public opinion.
Hence, the public press conference.
Huh?
Yes. Why would that not be appropriate?
This was a show of force. The fact that they’re willing to be this belligerent in a public press conference tells Congress that they don’t fear the public response.
Heh.
Kick the widows and orphans to show you mean business.
So Republican.
I’m going back to an observation I made a couple days ago: the gun lobby is using a trolling strategy. They want us to talk about Wayne LaPierre biting the heads of chickens by the side of the road, instead of talking about the issue of military hardware being in the hands of, well, anybody who feels like it.
This is an astute observation.
Then why are they out there at all if opinion is so locked in?
Because this show of belligerence puts Congress on notice that there will be hell to pay if they so much as propose restrictions on what color the death machines can be painted.
That message can be delivered without making yourself look like lunatics before the public. It didn’t take a speech to deliver the message to Joe Manchin.
They’re trying to do damage control and worsening the damage.
My hunch is anything they lost in the middle they gained two-fold among their base. I’d love to be proven wrong, but I just don’t see this hurting them in any tangible way.
Yeah, World Net Daily is running with the article I was expecting, that Sandy Hook was an Obama Administration Reichstag Fire. The only surprise twist was that rather than asserting that Obama will now simply seize firearms, it was all staged to enable ratification of that UN arms trafficking treaty which explicitly exempts domestic firearm policy from any meddling. (Guess I wasn’t drinking sufficiently-strong Birch beer beforehand.) This is exactly how present-day NRA supporters think (for lack of a better word). Ginning up hysteria amongst their base to generate more sales and more pressure on potentially-wavering politicians is the NRA’s M.O.
Check this link. Comments section is a must. Kinda sorry the apocolypse has been delayed…
http://intellectualrevolutionary.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/sandy-hook-elementary-shooting-evidence-of-a-conspiracy/
It also signaled that Congress is on the “right” track by gearing up for hearings about goddamn video games instead.
Seriously, why the fuck don’t video games have some Congresspeople in their pocket by now? It’s not as if they don’t have money.
Thankfully Joe Lieberman’s retiring so this argument won’t get nearly as much play as it would otherwise
…what color the death machines can be painted.
Want: http://www.glamguns.com/hk47.html
I don’t think that’s how things work. Probably they just feel like they need to respond and then form a response based on the internal consensus. Organizations like this are not nearly as crafty as you would imagine. Probably this will help with the gun sales, though. And that’s all they care about anyways.
Do you think they didn’t already knnow that?
They were out there for the same reason Romnney was sure of victory, and JenBob thinks he’s not a moron – epistemic closure.
Everybody they know wants to see a vigorous defense of gun culture.
That makes sense. And they’ve got “polling” to prove it.
And if their PR advisers tell them they sound like extremist nutjobs to most people, they don’t tone down the rhetoric, they find new PR advisers who tell them what they want to hear. I think there’s an entire industry of people getting paid to come up with “facts” that comfort the right wing.
Please explain to me why they held the presser in first place, if they had naught to gain. With this performance, they’ve only soldified the perception that they are out of touch with popular sentiment–excepting, of course, their own membership.
But I think there are an awful lot of NRA members with some sense who just might reconsider sending in next year’s dues.
NRA and Wayne LaPierre have a lot of explaining to do WRT their public affairs expenditures. As someone said upthread, what the hell was the PR department thinking?
I already explained it above. It fires up their base and shows Congress they’re not fucking around. The only reason it would fail would be if there were a more powerful lobby on the other side, or a public that cared about the issue enough to exert significant pressure on Congress.
Therein lies the NRA’s epic miscalculation.
I wish you were right, but the only calculation we need to keep in mind is that the NRA’s budget is some 30-40 times the Brady Campaign’s, and I don’t see that changing now that we know that Wayne LaPierre is the dick we always knew he was.
Oddly enough, I haven’t seen much of a Brady Campaign presence on this. I may have missed it, or maybe they think it would be in poor taste. A mistake if it is the latter, I think.
Definitely a mistake, as Newtown residents themselves are out there pushing for gun control in DC right now.
Isn’t that better than having a DC lobbying group take the lead?
A lot of people are learning the name Wayne LaPierre today. I don’t think many of them are developing a favorable first impression.
I’d be shocked to see those people sending 1/10th the money the NRA will get once they send out their next fundraising appeal with pull quotes from his comments today.
I’d be shocked to see those people sending 1/10th the money the NRA will get once they send out their next fundraising appeal with pull quotes from his comments today.
If the Romney candidacy taught us nothing else, it taught us that you can’t always cover up an appallingly bad message with cash.
No doubt, the NRA will make money off of this, but I’m more concerned about Congress. How about letters? How about votes? The gun lobby’s voters are a small group, and mobilizing normal people is a real threat to them.
Wayne LaPierre, as I noted above, just crapped on the press he depends on to get his message out. That little move is what a military strategist might call a force multiplier for the NRA’s opposition.
Wayne LaPierre should have never taken the podium–he’s no Chuck Heston, after all. This national exposure will be played and replayed, and relived again on Sunday morning, and that tape will get played and replayed. If I were the PR decider at the NRA, I’d cancel LaPierre’s MTP appearance as soon as I could think up a plausible reason.
And by the way, I knew LaPierre was a dick–you’re right–but I didn’t know he was a senile-souding dick who couldn’t direct better use of his organization’s millions for message management. I really expected something slick after a week of self-imposed exile, and instead I heard a disorganized, rambling, poorly-rehearsed old man avoiding a responsible discussion of the issues. It really did look like they are “fucking around” at the NRA. I don’t reckon any of the fence sitters in Congress got pushed the way the NRA wants.
But this is just proof that we should be civil and try to engage them in productive discussion.
/stifling gag reflex
Well. I know I don’t find this as gross as everyone else, but even I’m surprised by the “Guns don’t kill people, the media kills people” argument.
Why are you surprised? Were you expecting contrition?
Certainly not.
But I did expect him to paint gun control supporters as emotional overreactors, and that events like Newtown being random and largely unpreventable.
Calling out media violence only strengthens to desire to start throwing out regulatory responses to Newtown, and if he thinks it will stop with violence on television, he’s crazy.
What’s more, this is very much “biting the hand that feeds” over the long term. Does the NRA really want to take a stand against gun-glorifying media?
This.
This appearance was so over-the-top that it makes his side (who are already in danger of being equated with psychotic murderers) look unstable and irrational. He basically gave away the “Crazy gun-grabbers like Erik Loomis are skeery!” argument.
Wishful thinking.
Which is exactly the same argument they have deployed over the past 40 years.
I’ve never seen it delivered so poorly, and with such bad timing.
More to the point, has he been living on Mars for the last 40 years?
I’m looking for a gun that pulls its own trigger. Others here at LGM keep telling me they exist.
Here‘s one for you.
Flop sweat.
And I’m looking for a conservative who can argue without having to resort to cliches, hypotheticals, and assumptions.
Can you at least concede that the gun helps?
Stabbing 20 kids to death in ten minutes would presumably be a tad bit more difficult.
Not even presumably. The same day as Newtown, someone stabbed 20 kids in China.
None of them died.
Shorter Auguste: “Knives are not lethal weapons.”
Well, most times, against groups of unarmed opponents, like you find in schools, no, they actually are not.
Then boxcutters must be harmless.
Oh, WAIT…
Shorter troll: “I don’t actually know how a shorter works, but ignorance has never stopped me before.”
dude look like a lady, ooh…ooh
JenBob is missing its rest area glory hole.
You should bring a knife to a gun fight and then get back to us with the results.
That’s not bad at all.
Haven’t you been paying attention? In the new, Charlotte-Allen-approved real-life version of “Scissors-Paper-Stone”, gun beats knife, but the bucket of a male janitor beats gun.
I suppose maybe a knife beats the bucket, bringing it full circle.
I keep looking for a nuclear weapon for Christmas, but they appear to be restricted. Why? Nuclear weapons don’t kill people, and excepting those unfortunate couple of times in 1945, even people with nuclear weapons don’t kill people.
So why can’t I have my goddamn nuclear weapon?
I know. How the fuck else am I supposed to fight the government if I don’t have a nuke?
Scalia, in his infinite wisdom, has pointed out that you cannot bear nukes.
I want the shoulder-held missile launcher that is my God-given right as an American. If you outlaw SAMs, only outlaws will have SAMs.
I find this unlikely. It doesn’t take -that- much material anymore to create a nuclear bomb. Or at least a dirty one is like the size of a briefcase. I could “bear” one of those.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)
If you work out a lot you can bear a nuclear bazooka with a 2.5 mile range.
Oooh I want one of those. It goes well with the atomic hand grenade.
I want the shoulder-held missile launcher…
You can have one if you register it under the National Firearms Act of 1934 and pay the $200 tax.
You can also own a fully automatic machinegun or a silencer, but you must register them.
Here’s an NFA gun dealer board.
See if you can find something you like.
Am pretty sure Joseph Loughrey will tell you they do, if you’d care to give him some of your valuable time.
I am just looking for a finger that can kill large numbers at a distance without a gun in the hand.
I am just looking for a finger that can kill large numbers at a distance without a gun in the hand.
You voted for Obama, didn’t you?
Just like most voters, JenBob.
To be fair, that line was a batting practice pitch.
Really? A finger kills all by itself? Oh, you are babbling about drones, aren’t you? Those fingers are also on triggers, fuckwit. No weapon, no deaths.
Can you please explain why? I read the transcript and would be interested to hear what you did not find gross.
The stated willingness to take questions only starting Monday next week (Christmas Eve) was a delightful cherry of cowardice atop the pile of fudge. OK, not my best prose but I’ll stick with it.
Guns don’t kill people, watching other people with guns kill people kills people.
“We call this violent beast ‘the assault-weapon industry.’”
Beat me to it. That was my exact thought.
Ditto.
I’m a little surprised he didn’t jump on the PING PONG BALLS ARE DEADLIER bandwagon…
That story reminded me of a game my brother and his idiot friend used to play in high school. It was called sting pong. The rules were simple – first to five wins. Winning a point got you a shot from across the table at the other guy’s naked back. Winning the set got you five shots in a row.
They’re still alive. I’m the same would be true if that had played with guns.
It’s hard to get good backspin on guns.
[...] until I listened to Mr. LaPierre’s shit-flinging sidewalk nutjob shrieking session press conference this morning that I realized that it wasn’t the knife, or my ancestors, or me, or especially [...]
Meanwhile: http://gawker.com/5970497/while-the-nra-was-on-tv-talking-about-the-need-for-more-guns-some-guy-was-walking-up-and-down-a-road-in-pennsylvania-shooting-people
If only our state troopers had guns, none of this would have happened.
I think all sides can agree – had JenBob just been there, the ending would have been less tragic.
Or maybe some time in the middle would have been less tragic anyway,
Metaphorically, Njorl. Metaphorically.
Are we getting one of those weird times where the trees are releasing a toxin which makes people want to go apeshit with their guns?
“The media” means federal judges, Ronald Reagan, pols with “A” ratings from NRA etc.
The guy is a caricature. Did he delay speaking to craft this work of art? Okay.
The Stephanie Miller Show, btw, took up the whole violent video game stuff. She got push back from her own news anchor and producer. But, the NRA has been far from libertarian on things other than guns. Their “tough on crime” rhetoric, e.g., underlines why liberals and libertarians who support sane gun ownership should look elsewhere.
So he wants armed guards in every school. That’s about 150,000 – 200,000 armed people who are currently unable to get jobs as armed guards or police officers for some reason, possibly psychological. A George Zimmerman in every school would be just wonderful!
Yep.
Not just armed guards. Armed POLICE too. Strange. That doesn’t sound like the sort of “militia” they usually support. Sounds more like a standing army.
What’s wrong with armed police in schools?
We have resource officers assigned to the public schools here, and it’s proven to be a good idea.
But, then, they’re not there for spree shootings, which are not a problem in urban schools. I’m not sure how much protection an assigned officer in the building, with a sidearm on her hip, thinking about the kids and duties she has in the school, would be against someone who comes charging in with a couple of high-capacity, semi-automatic weapons.
It probably couldn’t hurt, tho, and while I am highly skeptical of cops in general, I would support hiring on and training more police who are being explicitly trained to protect and deal with on a personal basis our most vulnerable members of society (children) rather than riding around in cruisers all day.
Except given that tax increases to pay for this will be unpossible, I’d expect we will pay for the two armed guards per school by eliminating, say, history from the curriculum.
I’d like my kid to emerge from school both alive and educated.
Fund it entirely via a VAT on all firearms and ammunition.
Yup. That way, there are no externalities. The people who benefit (the gun nuts, by getting to keep all their guns) are the only ones who pay for the policy.
Good point. Lowell has about 250 officers. Assigning resource officers to the schools is a question of priorities – they have the people available to assign those shifts. It’s a staffing decision.
For smaller towns, it could mean increasing police staffing by, what, 25%?
The DOJ’s COPS program – which provided grants for police departments to hire community police – could be a model for funding, if we were serious about it.
In my home tome in Western Mass, it would mean hiring full time police officers for the first time. That is going to go over just great at town meeting.
Take an idea from Gingrich. Arm the poor children as guards (after they’ve finished their janitorial shift, of course)
I’m trying to imagine how this would work in Oakland. The PD is arguably understaffed by 400-500 officers, there is a list of 44 crimes — including burglary and theft — that the PD has not been able to respond to since 2010 because of said understaffing, the department is at risk of going into federal receivership, and there are 120 schools in the district. Where are they going to find 240 officers to station in the schools?
Combine this with the fact that the PD faced protests after an officer shot an unarmed high school student earlier this year, LaPierre’s proposal becomes one of the dumbest fucking ideas I have ever heard in my life.
That’s another problem. Lowell has been a real leader in the community policing movement, and the school resource officers grew out of that. Lowell police are trained and instructed to foster positive interactions in the neighborhoods, to get to know the people in their territory and become known by them. If you’ve got a Darryl Gates-style occupying army of a police department, putting Stacey Koons in a school full of people he sees as “the problem” isn’t a good idea.
No, but it’s certainly not a solution to the problem, or even a remotely good-enough way to manage it.
It might make some marginal sense to have armed police in schools with a history of violence (Chicago used to do this,, but I do not know about now), but most of these mass killings occur in schools with no such history. I do not think that the tax payers would support the cost of officers in every school for very long.
This sounds right. If there is no other purpose to having them there except to stop spree shootings, it would be a highly questionable way of prioritizing police or educational dollars.
You suggest the limits to the policy but that wasn’t my concern. It is that adding more police officers, the sort of “select militia” the 2A of the NRA worries about, is a somewhat ironic proposal.
In my part of Michigan, school resource officers were very common until recently. A few were holding on until the Republicans started shouting for budget cuts in the middle of a recession and refused to even consider extending the stimulus which included funds to keep cops and school employees(many districts had a cost share plan with the local cops for their officer).
It’s a good idea in high schools, because high school students commit a fair amount of the crime going on in your average small town and it probably helps to have a cop familiar with the little monsters.
That said, Columbine High School had a school resource officer who exchanged fire with the mass murderers there as he returned from lunch and they were headed inside. Even trained cops on scene aren’t proof against these kind of things. Faced with the same situation, a cop would act differently today than that guy did, hunkering down and calling for backup, but it still isn’t proof against mass shooters.
I’m not so sure it plays out that differently today. Unless the cops are wearing body armor and have comparable weapons as the shooter, there’s not much good that they can do.
This isn’t a new issue – the shootout in LA was nearly 20 years ago, right? It took like half of the LAPD something like an hour to bring those guys down.
Buy time. Keep him busy.
We have maybe a couple of those in a city of almost 70,000, with three high schools.
Besides the cost factor, there is also the question of the type of society we want to live and raise our kids in. Does any rational person want to send their children to a school designed to resemble a jail with armed guards simply because we lack the wherewithal to pass effective gun control legislation?
So one of Lowell’s 100-year-old schoolhouses, or one of the award-winning school buildings from the past couple of decades, becomes “a school designed to resemble a jail with armed guards” when there is a police officer in it?
No, but Lowell has better architecture than your typical exurban school.
No kidding. From Stan Gable, below:
Have a nice day, honey! Don’t fight in the yard!
My elementary school’s playground was an empty asphalt parking lot, with a chain-link fence which separated it from the manure pits of the pig farm next door.
“These are the days you remember,” indeed.
I’m so glad I live in Massachusetts.
I’m so glad I live in Massachusetts.
As I always say, Pennsylvania is a fine place to be from.
But seriously, you pass armed police walking beats in the most humane, civilized, enlivening city neighborhoods on earth. I just don’t buy the claim that the presence of police officers turns places into armed camps.
It is a bit jarring the first time you see a police officer walking down the hallway in a school, because your brain goes “Gun! Armed man! I a school! Call the police!” but then you remember that it is the police, and you get used to it. The resource officer just doesn’t seem out of place in a school setting.
So I doubt that having an actual cop is feasible, most departments are strapped as it is. We’ve got probably 15 schools in my city of ~120k. I don’t think there’s any way that the local PD can afford to have that many cops sitting around doing nothing all day long.
If you went this route, I’m sure you’d be looking at mall cops in short order – I would imagine that the kind of person who wants to hang around (armed) at a high school all day long for low pay is precisely the sort of person you’d prefer to keep away from schools in general.
Figured I’d look it up – my city has 24 different schools and a total of 220 police personnel. There are only a little more than 100 who are classified as “officers.”
I don’t know how many cops are on duty at any given time, but am I that far off in assuming that means that somewhere around 50% of officers would need to be assigned to school supervision?
We’re a little smaller, but have more than twice as many officers.
And they don’t sit around all day. They aren’t there to sit around and wait for spree shooters.
But I don’t think we’re talking about School Resource Officers – we’re talking about what kind of cop presence is required to deter rampage killers. I think by definition you are talking about a full-time, onsite role.
There may be enough to do at a high school (but again 1 cop isn’t going to cut it at a suburban campus) but what the hell is a cop going to do for 7 hours at an elementary school?
If you take a look at Sherm’s comments, he’s going quite a bit beyond that. I ask him specifically about resource officers, and he comes back to me with national guardsmen carrying machine guns in the subways.
I think there’s two different discussion topics – one is whether or not it’s useful for police to be engaged in high schools (and middle schools to a lesser extent) and the other is whether police presence is a viable response to school shootings.
I’ve got no beef with the idea of school resource officers from what I’ve read but I don’t see how that has much relevance to spree/rampage shootings. I’d imagine that the constant police presence wouldn’t be a positive but it’s so cost-prohibitive that it just doesn’t matter anyways.
In some respects, yes. I, for one, am sick and tired of seeing heavily-armed cops and national guardsmen on the subways, at the toll booths, at the train station, at the airport, etc.. Enough already. We don’t need to cave in to fear and to permit the gun nuts to win by doing the same thing with our schools. Plus, you know damn well that it’s a slippery slope. After the armed guards will come the bullet proof glass and doors and the metal detectors. No thanks.
Tell me, Sherm, just how “heavily armed” are the National Guardsmen you’ve seen at toll booths?
Spill.
And what, exactly, is your discomfort with “heavily armed police and National Guardsmen” supposed to have to do with a school resource officer who has a standard-issue sidearm?
You know what, Sherm? I live in a city that has had resource officers for more than a decade, and absolutely nothing like that has happened. How about you, Mr. “You know damn well?” How extensive is your experience with resource officers in schools?
OK, now let me share my actual experience with you: I worked in the most recently-built school in Lowell, a school with a resource officer, and it was the most humane, human-scale, inviting modern school building I have ever been to.
You don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re just projecting your own problems onto the question. Your “slippery slope” is as bogus as that of the gun nuts who think machine-gun bans will lead to armed camps.
Don’t have time to fully respond, but the officers and national guardsmen in NYC “defending” the transit system are routinely carrying fucking machine guns. We have made enough concessions to fear since 9/11, and I am not prepared to make any more. I’d rather my children not be raised in a new “normal” where armed officers are required at schools. There are better alternatives.
And you think that school resources officers are kinda sorta the same thing as national guardsmen carrying machine guns on the subway.
What you’re not prepared to do, Sherm, is think beyond a very beloved talking point, whether it reasonably applies to the situation or not.
And you think that school resources officers are kinda sorta the same thing as national guardsmen carrying machine guns on the subway.
Not speaking for Sherm, but I think that people carrying submachine guns is pretty much exactly what LaPierre is proposing. And I’m not sure why you keep assuming reasonableness on the part of the NRA. Do you think that “Let’s make America’s schools more like Lowell’s” was what was proposed today?
I love you, but your mistake is in generalizing from a reasonable policy in a reasonable city in a reasonable state, and applying that generalization to Wingnutstan.
I didn’t write anything in favor of LaPierre’s proposal, and I didn’t write anything about wingnuttia.
I wrote about school resource officers, asked what was wrong with that – not LaPierre’s proposal – and got national guardsmen in subways in response. (Were national guardsmen part of LaPierre’s proposal? Are you going to have a word with Sherm?)
There is such a thing as “too far,” and Sherm is taking a potentially-reasonable argument way, way too far by applying it to school resource officers.
I didn’t write anything in favor of LaPierre’s proposal, and I didn’t write anything about wingnuttia.
That I know. But I see you extrapolating from Lowell, and I just don’t see that happening in exurbia. So I think Sherm is discussing LaPierre’s vision, and you are discussing a reasonable part of real life, and you are talking past each other.
I mean, I know that you know that what works in Lowell is a function of density, of transportation, of a host of things that you can name better than I, most of which are not replicated in the places these things happen. You yourself say what would be needed elsewhere, and it does sound a lot like Sherm’s fears.
Maybe I’m just not understanding what the argument is over.
“And you think that school resources officers are kinda sorta the same thing as national guardsmen carrying machine guns on the subway.”
Where did I say that? You asked me a question about the national guardsmen, and I answered the question. Stop playing games and grow the fuck. And if stating that we don’t need armed guards and cops stationed at our schools to defend against the very infrequent mass-shootings in schools when it would be far superior to pass gun control legislation is a simple talking point, then so be it.
“Maybe I’m just not understanding what the argument is over.”
Agreed Mal. And with pretty much every other observation you just made. Let’s move on, Joe.
Here:
Just so it’s absolutely clear, I editing nothing out in between those passages. That was your direct response to my question.
And that’s just fucking nuts. This can be over when you acknowledge, or least stop arguing against, that observation that equating community resource officers with National Guardsmen carrying machine guns is bullshit.
Mal,
There are suburban towns that have school resource officers, who operate like school resource officers. There are a lot of things that work in a city that cannot be replicated in the burbs, but school resources officers are not among them. Putting a resource officer in a suburban high school would be no different from putting one in LHS, and it is nucking futs to think that doing so would be like having national guardsmen carrying machine guns.
The argument is about whether school resource officers can be reasonably considered part of the post-9/11 security state, akin to police in body armor with submachine guns patrolling public places. Sadly, there seems to be a disagreement on this point.
Question: “Tell me, Sherm, just how “heavily armed” are the National Guardsmen you’ve seen at toll booths?”
Answer: “Don’t have time to fully respond, but the officers and national guardsmen in NYC “defending” the transit system are routinely carrying fucking machine guns.”
So, I did not answer that “I think that school resources officers are kinda sorta the same thing as national guardsmen carrying machine guns on the subway.”
Enough Joe.
I quoted you where you said it. Want to see it again?
This is not me making up your response, or misrepresenting it.
Sherm, how about this: When you responded to joe, you also had in your mind LaPierre’s full vision for our schools, and that informed your response more than (or at least as much as) joe’s specific question. Would that be accurate?
Yes hogan. As well as what a friend told me transpired at a school board meeting in his town two nights ago.
That’s not all LaPierre was talking about.
I don’t imagine the schoolhouses in Lowell would meet the rigorous standards of the NRA’s expert and highly credentialed vision.
The NRA is gonna bring all its knowledge, all its dedication and all its resources to develop a model national schools shield emergency response program for every single school in America that wants it.
“Do you want the NRA changing your school’s curriculum? Do you want to bring guns into your child’s school, or keep them out? Democrats want to keep your schools under your control. Vote [Name of Democrat] in 2014.”
All royalties for this idea to the AFSC, please.
I’m actually kinda-sorta in favor of this.
Qualifying someone to use firearms responsibly is a long and arduous process, assuming you do it right. Basic training ain’t beanbag. Neither is the policy academy. And it would put a lot of people to work.
And I’m not that uncomfortable with the idea of armed security at schools; my own school had a pair of armed security guards (they swapped shifts, I don’t think I ever saw them both at once) and they were an ex-cop and ex-soldier respectively. They basically wandered around campus and gave directions to people and once or twice broke up fights. One of them helped me get a guy out from under a fallen fresnel once.
Of course, I would bet a lot of money that LaPierre think a ‘qualified’ armed guard is someone who took a weekend course and got handed a uniform and a sidearm. If I’d spent four years in the presence of some Paul Blart guy who also was armed maybe I’d feel differently.
I’ve had it up to HERE with your “RULES”!
I’m kinda sorta opposed to this, because of how I’m imagining it would play out down in Arkansas.
We had a cop taser and then arrest a 12 year old who sassed her mama here last year. (And most of our lovely citizens applauded him, I might add.) Putting a couple of armed cops in the schools sounds like a seriously bad plan to me.
Having actually worked in schools with resource officers, I think that’s exactly backwards.
A resource officer who specializes in working in schools full of kids, gets to know them by name (or at least recognize them), becomes one of the adults the kids know from school, and otherwise operates as an adjunct of the school staff is much less likely to handle a situation inappropriately than some beat cop who got a call in his cruiser to go to the middle school, after having spent the morning doing regular cop stuff.
And it’s no bad thing for children and teenagers to have regular interactions with the police that aren’t centered on “boy, are you in trouble now.”
More guns and a national crazy person database. How does one become part of said database and once the databse is populated, what then?
Hoping LaPierre gets a nasty flu this winter season.
I think ol’ Wayne missed bigger fish in the entertainment industry. I’m talking about reruns of old detective shows — Columbo, The Snoop Sisters and Murder, She Wrote. Each of those shows had a murder or so each episode rerun a few times a day every day gets to thousands of murders a year
And of course, as Wayne speaks, another mass shooting takes place, this time in Pennsylvania:
http://www.wjactv.com/news/news/sources-1-trooper-shot-another-injured-blair-co/nTcf5/
WTF? This month is fucking crazy with these!
How many mass shootings can we have before Christmas!
Obama administration, Congress quietly let school security funds lapse
Government officials told the Washington Guardian on Friday night that two Justice Department programs that had provided more than $200 million to schools for training, security equipment and police resources over the last decade weren’t renewed in 2011 and 2012, and that a separate program that provided $800 million to put police officers inside the schools was ended a few years earlier.
Meanwhile, the administration eliminated funding in 2011-12 for a separate Education Department program that gave money to schools to prepare for mass tragedies, the officials said.
A nationally recognized school security expert said those funds had been critical for years in helping schools continue to enhance protections against growing threats of violence. But they simply dried up with little notice as the Columbine and Virginia Tech school shooting tragedies faded from memory and many Americans and political leaders had their attentions diverted to elections, a weak economy and overseas dramas.
“Safeguarding your money, security and freedom”?
Interesting …
Riiight because Obama is shilling for people to have greater access to weapons which make mass shootings easier. Oh wait no he isn’t.
Of course its the conservatives who have been talking about reducing as much funding for public school as possible. Attacking teachers unions, diverting funds to private school voucher programs and trying to make curriculum as stupid-friendly as possible to feed their agendas.
Nice try Jenny.
That article is pretty convenient – manages to bring up “liberals” a couple times, while making it sound like earmarks (which funded the program) were eliminated by magical anonymous elves in Congress.
Funny, anybody with any understanding of Congress in 2010 knew EXACTLY who eliminated earmarks. Try posting news from a place that’s not so blatantly slanted next time.
I totally love that he tries to throw a big chunk of the video game industry under the bus. I’d guess that there’s probably a big intersection between the NRA’s younger membership and people who really love their Call of Duty and Red Dead Redemption (not to mention Fallout: New Vegas and Mass Effect). Good luck placating that bunch, Wayne.
I totally love that he throws a bunch of games and movies from the 1990′s under the bus. Mortal Kombat? Really?
Splatterhouse is from 1988 (although I guess there was a remake in 2010).
I rented that POS for Genesis way back in the day. Even at 13 or whatever, I recognized that it was a terrible game, but it’s only now that I wonder if they added the extra pixelated gore because they knew it sucked and needed a hook to get people to play it.
Might have been intentional. Picking on the weak and irrelevant sort of thing, knowing full well that if he attacks CoD and Halo, he’ll lose 75% of his audience.
My initial though was to compare this throwing under the bus to (Mad Men Spoiler)
Don Draper’s anti-tobacco letter that ended up backfiring on him. But, one major difference; that occured only after Lucky Strike had ditched SCDP. LaPierre’s betrayal would be like Draper writing that letter while still in the good graces of Lucky Strike and receiving their money. For that matter, Lucky Strike as a company probably has ethics more in line with gun manufacturers than video game companies (not that the latter are necessarily the most ethical companies).
Can I suggest that the President (or any number of governors) should step right up and agree that there should be a police officer in every school. Then turn it around, and propose paying for these officers with a user fee for a gun license or an excise tax on guns.
This would cost, say, $100K per officer. If there were 1000 gun owners in a town, and 3 officers for the elementary, middle, and high school, that would be $3K per year for a license.
Imagine the NRA foaming at the mouth response.
All of the schools that I attended as a ute were multiple detached buildings with a chain link fence perimeter. One rent-a-cop isn’t going to cut it.
That sounds like a lovely learning environment. By comparison, what happened to my elementary school (an ugly modernist expansion, capped by the addition of Lovecraftian-scaled, garishly-colored atria at the entrances)
When did America become a place with so few public spaces worth caring about?
When did America become a place with so few public spaces worth caring about?
I’d say beginning in the 1970s, when white people realized they needed to share public spaces with the unHeartlandishly-hued.
Apparently it’s a style, of sorts.
Yeah, that was the urban Florida style as well.
And we did have one solitary resource officer. On a campus with nearly 2000 students.
It’s a wonder that things weren’t worse, but then again, it was the 1980s. A much simpler time.
I don’t remember having cops around at my CA high school in the late 80s – early 90s. We did have a pretty decent gang problem, so it’s possible they were there and I just didn’t notice.
My Freudian roots (repressed, sublimated, or whatever through Deleuze and Guattari, etc.) are gonna come out now. Fair warning.
All this bullshit about fantasizing and pornography is pure, unadulterated projection on Wayne-o’s part. Nobody, and I mean nobody, was talking about all of this in even vaguely sexual terms *before* dude made it the centerpiece of his little extended parapraxis. Suddenly we’re supposed to be more horrified by some set of unrealized desires, by various imaginary formations and so forth that we are by a culture which promotes the constant, direct engagement with the real goddamn fucking thing? And all because it’s ooooh sooo sexy? Why ever do you think that, Wayne? It wouldn’t be because of how those guns make you feel or anything, would it?
The thing about Fascist attacks on images instead of realities is that they always telegraph the nature of the real investments they’re trying to divert attention from.
Luckily, it’s pretty transparent, too.
Well, the solution here is obvious. If only LaPierre had been volunteering in Sandy Hook school at that time, guarding those children. With his well-trained firearms skills, he could have prevented this tragedy. It is truly sad that LaPierre did not see fit to save those 26 lives.
I grew up watching Wile E. Coyote and I have yet to attempt dropping an anvil on anyone’s head.
I really don’t think it’s TV and video games.
I did, but its tough to get them hoisted very high. They tend to be a bit heavy.
If we outlaw anvils, only criminals will carry anvils.
Besides, pianos and safes are just as deadly. This is a slippery slope, indeed.
The solution for schools is a maze of well placed rakes and 2x4s with nails sticking out of them. Just teach the kids where it’s safe to walk, all well armed intruders get concussions and tetanus!
Japan has far more violent media (ever read a manga or watch a Takashi Miike film?) than the US, but the murder rate there is less than 1/10 ours. I wonder what the difference could be?
Higher suicide rate?
Greater tolerance for pedophilia?
The outfits they make teenage girls wear in schools has a calming effect?
The lack of decent katana polish?
Takeshi Kitano stays gainfully employed at all times?
People are still creeped out by the ending of Audition to do anything productive?
=)
You were wrong, Erik.
I don’t want La Pierre’s head on a stick.
I think a pointy stick needs to be inserted somewhere else. For once, I think Vlad Tepes had the right idea.
The trick is to use a blunt stake so he doesn’t die instantly from puncture wounds and hemorrhaging but instead has his internal organs slowly crushed by his own weight.
[I learned that from Anno Dracula by Kim Newman]
Yep, and I want all the rest of the NRA board and their political lickspittles lined up along side him at the entrance to the Capitol Building.
Only the NRA board. Their Congresscritters can go on cleanup detail.
NRA is the oldest civil rights organization in the US and one of the best examples of democracy.
It’s easy to embrace democracy and free political speech when you agree with them.
The difficult part is understanding that the principle is more important that your particular viewpoint.
For instance, I truly believe socialists and communists are the enemies of America, but I tolerate them because of the principle.
And that’s what makes me better, yes BETTER than you.
No, the NRA is the firearms manufacturers lobbying arm. They just dupe all you rubes into help pad their bottom lines.
What was that about your pancake batter?
Oh noes! You used… a metaphor! How violent of you!
/ok, even I can’t keep a straight face.
Who said it was a metaphor?
LaPierre forgot to mention shock metal and The Basketball Diaries. Jesus Christ, is it still 2000?
“Grand Theft Auto” is from the United Kingdom and “Mortal Kombat” is from Japan. What the fuck they have to do with US culture is beyond me.
No, Mortal Kombat is Midway Games. Street Fighter II done…Chicago style.
Am I going to get flying monkeys for the words “FINISH HIM”?
What. The. Fk.
“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Okay, even granting the premise:
1) Does he really not see any difference between a law enforcement professional and a private citizen with (maybe) a weekend’s worth of certification classes?
2) Does he really mean to imply there’s no difference between a bad guy with a breech-loading shotgun and one with a 30-round magazine attached to a semi-automatic rifle?
3) If you take the guns away from both the good guys and the badguys, doesn’t that solve most of the problem? After all, there are a lot of ways to stop a bad guy with a knife or a baseball bat.
4) Finally and most importantly, when both are armed and neither one has yet committed a crime, how do we tell the good guy and the bad guy apart?
That number 4 is a doozy, ain’t it? These morons really think that five to ten people brandishing weapons without any clear sense of who’s who would be an improvement.
Astonishing.
Buffy: Does it ever get easy?
Giles: You mean life?
Buffy: Yeah, does it get easy?
Giles: What do you want me to say?
Buffy: Lie to me.
Giles: Yes. It’s terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true. The bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies and… everybody lives happily ever after.
Buffy: Liar.
Re: #4 – I’m pretty sure the typical NRA member thinks they know how to do that. See also George Zimmerman.
Gun Buying Frenzy Photos
“The gun buying frenzy is in full swing. Gun stores all over the country are reporting record sales. Stephen emailed us these before and after photos from the store he works at. This week his store has been selling 1,000 each day.”
Yes, there will always be sociopaths and narcissists. Why do we need to cater policy to the worst among us?
Wayne is just doing his job in promoting sales for his true masters.
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