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The is the best way to make fencing a real sport again. It also might give certain folks the kind of exercise they desperately need.
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And lest we forget:
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This happens everywhere on the Internet. The fondleurkers come out of the unlocked cupboard labeled “gun cabinet” every time one of their number has a bad day and makes the news.
In Canada you get a background check to get a gun license, and you need the license to get a gun. So in effect you do need a background check to buy a gun. That is quite simply not the case across much of the U.S…
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Then why don’t we send soldiers into conflicts without guns?
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And you wonder why it’s impossible to have a reasonable discussion about gun control, when anyone carrying a gun openly is obviously no different than a deranged killer.
The you wonder why no-one takes gun-control freaks seriously any more… keep drifting away from reality and so how far you get.
We do, it’s called the Air Force.
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Everything is connected on the internet now, each site desperate for clicks… so the MO is to create something more incendiary than you would be inclined to do otherwise, so that it draws in more people - either those that agree or find what you are saying reprehensible.
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Because of where I live, I see people with weapons (knives as well as guns), in public, a lot. People of all different races, ages, genders, attire, demeanors, socio-economic strata, etc. And lots of different kinds of guns. But I never find myself nervous or in fear of such people or their guns. You know why? Because I’m not scared of everything and anything, and I don’t turn every potentially dangerous situation, in my mind, into a slippery slope situation where it, the potential dangerous event, has become an actual dangerous event. And because I too have a gun: I don’t always carry it, but I can if I choose to. I’m also not scared because the criminals here know that many of us non-criminals have guns, so they (the criminals) seem to be less likely to attempt violent and/or “I might run into someone while doing this”-type crimes (burglary, car theft, vandalism, shoplifting, etc.) Here’s the deal: people like Ruben Bolling, and even some of you, despite loads of education and “Cultural Capital” and intellectualism, seem to be scared and fearful most of the time. You laugh at and ridicule the various Moral Panics that don’t concern you, but you have a Pocketful of Panics that regularly get trotted out on threads just like this one. You are deathly afraid, terrified even, of “The Other”. Your “Other” is people who live in what is thought of as “fly-over country” here in America: generally (though not always) Caucasian, gun-owning, God-fearing, traditional-marriage, pro-life, law & order / crime and punishment, family values America. That demographic is still a big part of this country, although Media would have us believe otherwise. The “fly-over states” demographic was what this country was about, generally speaking, for a good part of its history. People in America raised families. They worked hard, they made a home and a life for themselves and they were willing to defend it, at home or abroad, with guns if necessary. They believed in God and they believed in fighting for their country, not against it: they didn’t try to chip away at it and undermine everyone’s belief in “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.” They didn’t try to build a Brave New World, with Science as the New Religion. They didn’t try to redefine and reclassify “right” and “wrong” and “good” and “bad” clear out of existence via Cultural and Moral Relativism and a bland, gray, easily-palatable homily-gruel of “I’m Okay, You’re Okay” and “If it Feels Good, Do it” and “Everyone Gets a Trophy” and “You Didn’t Build That.”
The traditional values and attitudes I mentioned above (i.e. “God and Country” or, more humorously “God, Guns & Guts”) aren’t things to be scared of, folks. In a world gone mad, they would be. But we haven’t lost our way to such an extent as all that, have we? We haven’t lost our way to the extent that we actually think of goodness as badness and badness as goodness. Have we?
Look around. I’m not so sure. Many of you routinely use the spelling “Americuh” when making fun of your “Other”, as if the people who don’t share your values are inherently stupid, mean, ugly, fat, inbred, etc. Your attitudes, no matter how much you pretty them up and justify them with your various reasons, are prejudiced (“I hate Christians because I’m a Gay Wiccan”, “I hate Pro-Lifers because My Body, My Choice”, “I hate the Teabaggers because they have values and I’m into Moral Relativism.”) You are prejudiced. Plain and simple as that. And you feel utterly justified in the prejudice you direct at those you hate (Christians, Republicans/Conservatives, Pro-Lifers, Gun Advocates, Traditional Marriage Advocates, etc.) You excuse your prejudice and rationalize it and in many cases you even bask in it and feel great about it and pat one another on the back because of it.
Now you can spin it as much as you like, but a good portion of what gets posted here on boingboing.net, a good portion of the “wonderful things” here, are very very negative. Of course, my “negative” may be your “whistle blowing” or “consciousness-raising” or whatever, but the fact remains that most of the posts here are of an “exposé” character: highlighting this or that scandalous bad/stupid/wrong thing that “The Man” or “The Establishment” or “Big Business / Corporations” or “Dumb White Christian Americans” are up to. The posts I refer to, the negative ones, are, at their core, their subtext level, enthusiastically and pointedly anti-American. Or possibly (more accurately?) anti-Traditional-Values-American, since many of you may actually think of yourselves as “Pro-America”, when it’s your own redefined, re-imagined version of American that you’re defending: the Brave New America, “The New Normal” America, where everything and anything goes, perhaps. Where the last Richie Racist has been hung with the intestines of the last Christian. Year One of the Cultural Revolution. Lady Gaga for President.
So. That being the case, it’s no surprise to me that Ruben Bolling’s tiresome, kneejerk, lowest-common-denominator, shrill & strident shtick is so popular here. So far, from the responses to this most recent cartoon of his, I would venture to say that not only are most of you anti-assault-weapon but probably anti-gun period. I bet the majority of you don’t believe that any citizen has a justifiable reason to own or carry a gun, or possibly (?) even own or carry a weapon of any kind (other than a rape whistle and some pepper spray, perhaps.)
But here’s something to think about: every single human being has the right to self-defense. We don’t question that a dumb animal will, quite naturally, defend itself when attacked, but there are many here among us who don’t think a human being has that very same, and very basic, right. There is a mindset in our law enforcement that essentially boils down to that of “Peasants May Not Own Swords.” A citizen simply having a gun makes some people, and most law enforcement officers, suspicious. They’re like “fear biters.” And cops are the biggest Fear Biters of all. Any routine stop they make, any initial interview they conduct with a citizen, many of them (the cops) go into it thinking and behaving as if they’re about to fucking get murdered by Joe Lunchpail. I lived in a city once, I won’t say where, where I was literally more scared of the police there than I was of the criminals. And this was 20 years ago. It’s much worse now, I’ve been told.
Hell, most of you here should be in favor of gun ownership and “open carry” laws if for no other reason than it give a citizen a fighting chance against an increasingly brutal, irrational and unchecked police force.
At any rate, the way I see it, Bolling seems to be making a career of pitting Americans against Americans. Some editors here are doing the very same thing. Whatever. Go ahead and buy into it if you like. I’ll think I’ll pass.
I’ll leave you with this: we should be more scared of the people saying we should be scared than the things they say we should be scared of.
In this case, “open carry patriots” don’t concern me nearly as much as Ruben Bolling and his fellow-travelers in lockstep with his simple-minded “Preaching to the Choir” rhetoric.
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OK - I found my sources. From the Bureau of Justice Statistics, they have stats both in 1997 and 2004. Less than 12% of criminals get their guns from legal means. Because, you know, they either are too young to buy a handgun, or they can’t pass a background check. Most of them buy either from a friend or family member who can legally buy a gun, or they go through an illegal source.
This is why I get all pissy about people screaming about a “gun show loop hole”. There isn’t one. That isn’t where people are getting their guns for crime. I’ve attended dozens of gun shows and private sellers are few and far between. Even then you are dealing with private citizens that normally don’t want to get in trouble. They won’t sell to someone who looks under age or gives off bad vibes. A lot of people want to a least see and write down your ID to cover their own ass.
Anyway, below is the link to the PDF, Table 14, and I’ll try to copy/paste the info: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf
Source of Firearm – 1997 - 2004
Purchased or traded from — 14.0% - 11.3%
– Retail store – 8.2 - 7 .3
– Pawnshop – 4.0 - 2.6
– Flea market – 1.0 - 0.6
– Gun show – 0.8 - 0.8
Family or friend – 40.1% - 37.4%
– Purchased or traded – 12.6 - 12.2
– Rented or borrowed – 18.9 - 14.1
– Other – 8.5 - 11.1
Street/illegal source – 37.3% - 40.0%
– Theft or burglary – 9.1 - 7.5
– Drug dealer/off street – 20.3 - 25.2
– Fence/black market – 8.0 - 7.4
Other – 8.7% - 11.2%
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Ok, but to say it takes 60 days to get a firearm is just plain not. true.
I can’t speak to the US, since I haven’t lived there since I was 5, but my brother-in-law, by virtue of having been a hunter before the current legislation, can own a full-auto weapon. I cannot. I have no problem with this.
For me, I have firearms. I own several, which I use for target shooting and hunting. I really don’t get the uniquely American view that firearms == personal defence. That whole ‘rugged individual’ myth you’ve got going is pretty laughable, but I see where it comes from.
The big problem I see with Canadian firearms legislation is that I get checked WHEN I APPLY. Suppose my wife and I have a messy divorce? Suppose I’m a violent asshole instead of a reasonable person. I can go, right now, and buy a firearm, with the intent of killing ‘that cheating slut’. Since the background check was say… 10 years ago, I walk in to the store, and out with a firearm.
Unless my wife had the foresight to call the Canadian Firearms Centre and report our impending divorce and that she feels threatened by me, there is no problem. Even then, unless I surrender my PAL, I’ll probably STILL walk out with a weapon.
Canada is certainly better than the US, as far as gun legislation goes, but don’t think for a minute that our system is any damn good when it really counts.
(sorry if this makes no sense, I’m about 75% through a bottle of mead.)
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When was the last time someone in the United States experienced a positive outcome after shooting a police officer?
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I’d take it in a second over the mess we have down here.
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Ask Christopher Dorner. 
I’ll grant that. I think the Canadian system has serious flaws, despite the fact that I currently own 6 guns. I like target shooting and hunting, but I get really creeped out by some of the ‘justice porn’ fantasies I see American gun owners spout.
If I had a gun, and heard a gunman on the loose, randomly killing people… I’d run the fuck away and call police. Just ask that guy who got shot the other day in the US trying to stop a killer how well that worked out.
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I’m pretty sure Buzzcrack or whatever isn’t prosecuting a false flag campaign of civil violence. Nor are they infiltrating gun-fondler organizations with ludicrously tasteless talking points, cowardly justifications, and other craven bullshit strictly to stir people up. If the fondlers don’t want to appear to be fanatical idiots by coming out of the woodwork for only one subject, they have the power to knock it off any time.
LIES. hydrox were first, and they definitely tasted better.
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I don’t think it is uniquely American. I also don’t think it is in the font of the minds of most gun owners. At least not most of the time. Certainly some firearms are more suited for it, but a lot of stuff out there is not. I think most people buy guns based on the type of shooting they plan to do, and if they can also use it for defense, then that is a nice thing to have.
I think self-defense gets used a lot because it is a defensible point. You don’t NEED to hunt or go target shooting. But it’s hard to come up with an argument that one doesn’t have a right to protect themselves and their family. And since that was sort of the reasoning behind the 2nd Amendment in the first place, it becomes something a lot of people use as a bedrock when arguing.
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I guess that is a cultural thing. In Canada, most gun owners know that if they ever use one of their firearms in self defense, no matter how obvious that use is, they will be charged with something. If the shooting was actually in self-defense, you’ll be acquitted, but damned if the Crown won’t do everything in its power to make your life a living hell in the mean time.
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