A few words on the subject

of gun control:

Fuck guns and fuck every single person who utters the words "today is not the day to talk about gun control", or "guns don't kill people" or "but murders by gun have decreased in the country" or "let's not politicize this tragedy" and fuck the Michigan legislature for ramming through a bill PERMITTING guns in schools 18 hours before the deadly shooting in Newtown.

What the fuck is wrong with you people? Afraid of deadly assault by FUCKING JUICEBOX?!

And fuck the President and Congress for being goddamned pantywaists and sending out their flaks to say that now is not the time to talk about gun control while they're taking NRA money. How many more kindergartners need to die before someone says "Hey, you know what? Maybe we SHOULD be politicizing this and talking about it and ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT instead of merely expressing our sympathies and getting distracted by the next shiny thing and forgetting about Aurora and Columbine and Virginia Tech and every other goddamned massacre by crazy motherfucker who was allowed to stockpile an arsenal that would make a small nation green with envy. 

And guess what--the Constitution does NOT protect a mentally ill person's right to carry semi-automatic rifles into an elementary school to shoot up a classroom full of 5 year-olds because he has unresolved parental issues and should be getting mental health care instead of ammunition for his Glock. You fucking douchebags (and I'm not talking to DR readers, you know that) who think that gun control is an infringement on your Second Amendment rights need to sit huddled in those closets along with the terrified children, shitting your pants in fear that a psychopath is about to whip open the door and riddle you with bullets.

You want your guns? Fine. Then the government ought to tax the LIVING SHIT out of your ammo. Let's see how many more kids don't get to see Christmas or Kwaanza or Hannukah or Eid because you are uncomfortable with the size of your penises. Fuck you.

Fuck you.

P.S. And nobody...NOBODY...needs a goddamned AK-47 to blast the head off a deer. So fuck THAT argument as well.

The end.

--WT

UPDATE: Read this. Fucking conservative, racist gun culture.

Comments

[Amy]

I've been arguing all day with "responsible gun owners" as they refer to themselves. You are right. Absolutely, positively right on every count. My heart breaks for these families and their friends who must watch the stupid parade itself in the media, all in defense of our founding father's intentions. It is a political issue and it makes me sick to watch the president and his spokespersons in the aftermath.

I've been a reader for years but never felt compelled to comment before. Thanks for speaking up and out.

[donnah]

Amen. I chat with absolute diehard assault rifle owners who refuse to acknowledge the problems in our gun-loving society. The comments they make are senseless and their devotion to guns is insane. It's time to do something. Now.

[Tom]

oh man Watertiger - your passion on this subject is identical to mine concerning climate change and its ultimate impact on our (all life on the planet "our") continuation. YES i agree with you 100% but it's too late now, same as it is for climate change. Keep fightin' the good fight and trying to raise awareness and action in people, but it will fall on deaf ears.

One thing i often wonder - why don't the murdering bastards every visit an old folks home or an institute for the terminally ill or for the criminally insane? Why is it always somewhere that takes the future and always by "intelligent" white guys with issues? As one blog i read pointed out: if this guy had been a Muslim - or non-white, oh THEN, see, all our "stereotype" rascist, ethnocentrist, nationalist (and the rest) prejudices are JUSTIFIED, right? But white guys, oh i guess (in this case, though i'm older) WE get a pass - ya, know, trouble dealing with reality somewhere that doesn't meet "expectations."

On another note, this is really going to mess up school security (and another reason to homeschool to the extent possible) and make going to school so distasteful to those who work and are forced to attend public and private institutions that it will be the equivalent of what 9-11 did to air travel. You'll all be strip-searched or groped or radiated so that NO WEAPONS get in the school (- but that won't stop it from happening again somehow).

Our culture is so depraved now that we have zombies eating people's faces, whack-jobs (okay, let me re-phrase that) or random "hits" on people walking down the street, complete strangers to each other, and a new type seems to reveal itself every month or so. It's not just here - this shit (and worse) is going on worldwide.

The way humanity is living is killing us and much of the other life on the planet. But we have the apparent willpower of lemmings or yeast and just can't help ourselves, despite being self-named "sapiens" (which we're anything but according to history), we're "victims of our biological imperatives" (said with Jackie Gleason snide). Ya, know "brilliant" (rolling your eyes like Dangerfield in Caddyshack with the hat and free bowl of soup). Legends in our own minds. We just don't get it and have become (probably the "poster" for) the epitome of invasive species, cancer, or parasite. We've certainly outlived our usefulness.

[KT]

I'd like to make gun ownership contingent on passing a timed live fire test in a confusing atmosphere using rubber bullets. Americans who demonstrate the ability to hit a moving target in 3 rounds or less while also being shot at deserves the privilege of carrying a weapon. Until you demonstrate this ability, you're not qualified fire a gun in public nor are you qualified to own a one.

That and time limited licenses. 3 to 5 years, then a retest if you want to renew.

[Rick J]

If some nut were to take out high profile Republicans or whatever douce bags like Limbaugh call themselves these days , things would start to change in hours.

[KT]

I'd love to see someone load up one of these assault weapons with blanks, go to the Senate and just start firing. The passage of a resulting gun control bill would then be determined by counting the number of senators with piss darkened crotches.

[montag]

Guns don't scare me. It's the crazy fuckers who are in love with them that I worry about.

Since we don't have a reasonable way to keep crazy fuckers off the streets, then we ought to be able to take handguns, assault rifles, high-capacity clips and armor-piercing ammunition out of their hands.

When it gets to the point that a bunch of fucking yahoos whipped up by the NRA and fantasies of eliminationism say their "rights" (try reading the fucking Second Amendment all the way through sometime, assholes, with an eye to what constitutes a dependent clause) trump the right to life of kindergarteners, moviegoers, Sikhs and sundry innocent bystanders, then we are truly down the rabbit hole.

One thing to remember at all times: the guy doing the shooting is not the only crazy asshole with a gun. Anyone who thinks he needs an arsenal to "pertect" themselves from the "gummint" or the UN or the local atheist or "Mooslim terrorists" or "libruls" has got a fistful of screws loose, and is a 100%, certified paranoid chucklehead who shouldn't be allowed to get near anything more dangerous than a tv remote.

[John Ricker]

I have been destroying guns and turning them into art for the last 15 years and in the process have talked to many gun nuts. The core question to ask them is " who do imagine killing with your gun?" Even " liberal" gun owners will finally fess up to a fear of the "Dark Skinned", urban, immigrant what ever the latest code word de jour happens to be for the feared other.

The gun culture in the USA is based on the slave culture. In the old south black slaves ( There were slaves of other ethnicities early on often referred to as indentured servants, but still essentially slaves) significantly outnumbered whites and there was a constant fear of a slave rebellion. White men were armed and ran constant night patrols( todays "militias" and "neighborhood watches" of Zimmeramn fame ) to keep on the look out for escaped slaves or to put down the possibility of a rebellion. This is the gun culture of fear that the authoritarian right exploits.

A new social contract has arisen around guns. White working class men have exchanged stable well paid union jobs with security, a fixed pension and place to belong in exchange for the chimera of power guns give them. They hunker in fear in their suburban and now exurban houses/castles/bunkers and protect their wives and daughters from sexuality young black "bucks" represent. The anti-abortion movement is really an anti-sex movement and an anti-intimacy movement and guns keep it cold and hard. These men have guns to protect their property, and their property includes their wives and daughters.

Many are enthralled with a narcissistic intimate relationship with "Jesus", a relationship that strives to make up for the lack of intimacy and passion in their marriages or relationships with their children. There is almost complete overlap in the " beat the shit out of your small children so they respect you movement", "the gun culture" , " anti-sex (abortion) movement" and still robust core racism that drives the Authoritarian right/Tea Party/NRA/Born again narcissist (Xristian) movement.

Ask these men, and all this is really just a boys club, if they would support an abortion if their daughter was raped and made pregnant by a black man. Would they raising that dark skinned child?

I have found that when the gun guys daughters marry black men and have a family with them, these men would bring their guns to my "Gun Bakes" where we would put them in the forge, heat them till red hot and smash the symbol of hate and fear that had filled their lives in to a piece of harmless steel, which are then added to the "Gun Coffin". Now instead of constantly thinking about who they would use their guns to kill, there was space in their hearts to love those around them who have been waiting and hoping to share that love.

15 years of dealing with gun guys and I strongly feel they would be happier and better off collecting toy trains.

[pansypoo]

people need to not pay NRA dues. give up their membership.

[Angryspittle]

To own a fucking gun is a right but medical care is a privilege. WTF? WTF?

[Peterr]

I'm really tired of gun-related funerals. I've presided over too damn many of them in my 20+ years as a pastor.

I'm really, really tired of certain preachers as well.

Watertiger, I may have to quote you in my sermon tomorrow. I will, however, have to translate it from the original Hydrokitteh . . . it wouldn't do to have a third of the congregation faint in shock at the colorful, evocative language that you use so well.

[John B. Pierce]

You're spot on. I personally practice my "precious" Second Amendment rights by refusing to own or even fire any firearms, period. Because I'm NOT a member of "a well regulated militia" any more than Adam Lanza was. The whining, cowardly gun nuts who piss in their pants otherwise can feel free to use their precious toys on themselves and spare us the misery.

[watertiger]

Peterr, I'd be honored. Sorry about working blue. It's my most familiar idiom. ;-)

[Kyle]

"Today is not the day to talk about gun control."

Because they're oh so open to discussing it on days when there isn't a deadly mass shooting. Not that there are many such days lately.

[Peterr]

Sorry about working blue. It's my most familiar idiom. ;-)

And you wield it so very, very well. I'm sure it took years of practice to become so good with it. ;-)

No need to apologize to me, though I felt I had to apologize to you in advance for any violence I might do to your well-crafted prose in my efforts to translate it.

[Praedor]

I am a liberal "responsible gun owner" who also happens to own an assault rifle. I'm a veteran too. I am 100% comfortable with a gun, do not fear it, do not worship it, do not fuck it. I enjoy cleaning it, firing it at the range, tweaking the ammo that I load myself to eek out higher accuracy. Could I use it to shoot deer? Absolutely I could. Mine is no a Bushmaster .223 peashooter. I COULD hunt with it but I don't and I wont because I have no desire to kill animals. I have no desire to kill human animals either. My owning this weapon is NOT a threat to any of you here as it will never be used to hose down a room of kids at school, a room full of theater-goers, or a room of fat fucks at a fast food restaurant. Mostly, it isn't a threat because I am not a whacko, not even slightly mentally disturbed.

You may like to collect stamps. You may like to carve wood figures. You may throw pottery on a wheel. Good for you. Me? I like operating my rifle at the range, popping the center of a target at various ranges. I'm a veteran, it's in my blood. Knock yourselves out with your hobbies and I'll continue to enjoy mine. Hell, you could even try an assault weapons ban again but I would still own mine, including the 20-round magazines for it. Every person who owns one currently will continue to own them even after a ban as there will never ever be a gun confiscation run in the USA.

Incidently, the old Assault Weapon Ban that expired that everyone is keen to get reinstated? It didn't actually ban assault rifles. You could STILL own one. If you owned a rifle made before the ban it was still yours to keep and shoot as you wished. If you wanted one DURING the ban you could still get one. You can even try taxing the crap out of ammunition...but then, I load my own so such a tax would not touch me.

Actually, the clamor right now for more regulations (which I actually support, by the way - NO avoiding background checks, strict training requirements for concealed carry, maybe even for buying a semiauto rifle)...anyway, what the clamor is doing right this moment is greatly increasing sales on semiauto handguns and rifles. Happens EVERY time talk picks up on possible new regulations or restrictions. Hell, BOTH times Obama was elected gun sales increased because of people's fears that new regs or restrictions would soon be coming down the pike. That wasn't me. I bought mine over 10 years ago because I wanted them. Simple as that. And because I enjoy shooting (but NOT hunting). Once you own the weapon, you are free and clear. Any law passed AFTER the fact merely affects FUTURE purchases so...I will still have my pistol and assault rifle no matter what happens with gun laws. Just saying. Objective reality is something I insist EVERYONE face and accept. Denial, fear, or wishful thinking is real annoying and leads to bad laws (like the PATRIOT Act, the war in Iraq, failure to deal with the REAL cause of the terrorism we've faced since even BEFORE 9/11, etc).

[Gummo]

Praedor, fuck you. A thousand times, fuck you.

I'm sick of so-called "responsible" gun owners who whine about any restrictions on gun ownership because, "it's not me, it's those crazy people who are ruining it for everybodeeeee!"

You're an enabler, whether you admit it or not, of every psychopath who goes on a spree, of every child murderer, of every mother killer and every spouse killer. Yes, you, you whining little shit.

Oh, your precious hobby might be affected? Well, that's certainly so much more important than the thousands killed by guns in this country every fucking year. Oh, no, you just continue to coo over your little fetishized metal penises while thousands continue to die.

Because it's not you. It's never you.

[pansypoo]

what gummo said. my uncle is 'responsible', but was just havuing fun w his new laser guided gun. more acting like a 20 yr old.

[Peterr]

Actually, the clamor right now for more regulations (which I actually support, by the way - NO avoiding background checks, strict training requirements for concealed carry, maybe even for buying a semiauto rifle)...anyway, what the clamor is doing right this moment is greatly increasing sales on semiauto handguns and rifles. Happens EVERY time talk picks up on possible new regulations or restrictions.

Any suggestions, then, on how to get those regulations you support enacted? Silence on gun safety laws hasn't helped get any put in place, so before I accept your idea to ratchet down the clamoring, I need a better idea from you to replace it.

The right wing has no problem with clamor and guns. The mere thought of a black democrat in the WH drove gun sales up in 2008, and more than a few of the political ads I saw in MO during the 2012 campaign suggested that folks better get their guns now, especially if Obama stays in the WH and the Dems control the Senate -- the very electoral results that came to pass.

As for your promises about your guns never being used in a crime like this, it's a nice sentiment. I don't doubt your sincerity. But when your home gets broken into and the guns taken, then what? When they're in the trunk of your car, and it gets stolen while you're at the grocery store on the way home from the shooting range, then what? You may never use them to kill people, but these guns may not always be under your control.

[Randall]

What are the first three words of the 2nd amendment?

[Bruce388]

Hey, Praedor, remember the Jonestown, AR massacre? It's been several years and massacres ago. I know, it's hard to keep track. The kids got those weapons by breaking into Grandpa's storage cabinet.

So you're guaranteeing YOUR assault rifle will never be stolen, either by a thief or a relative? Good for you.

[mothra]

So Praedor, basically you're saying that the lives of hundreds of children is a small price to pay so you can get your rocks off firing assault rifles? Cool.