Sunday, December 23, 2012

Don't Worry, I Will Let This Go Soon Enough

This is all just astonishingly transparent bullshit. Other countries have all of this stuff — the games, the movies, the hurricanes (?!) — and they don’t need an army of armed guards protecting their schools. If these were the causes of school massacres, they’d be a worldwide phenomenon. What the US does have that other countries don’t is a level of gun saturation that far outstrips the rest of the world. For every 100 resident, the US has 88.8 guns. The second highest level of gun saturation in the world is Serbia, with a mere 58.2. We have more guns that everyone and — duh! — it’s not making us any safer. It’s just making everything progressively worse.

And now we have to subsidize this by paying for an literal army of armed school guards? Has anyone noticed that we’re about to go over a freakin’ fiscal cliff? And now we need to add more spending? Besides, how’s that stop things like the Aurora theater massacre? This should absolutely be a nonstarter.

It’s time to get very, very serious about the problem of gun in our society. And step number one is inviting Wayne LaPierre and his soft-on-crime blood lobby/murder club/fear factory to kindly STFU and let the adults handle things from here on out.


Here’s something you may not realize: Gun ownership has been declining for decades. According to the University of Chicago’s General Social Survey, in 1977, 54% of American households had guns. By 2010, the number had fallen to 32%. Yet gun sales are at record highs. That means that existing gun owners are buying more and more guns. It’s not enough to have a hunting rifle over your mantle; you need an entire arsenal, just in case the government falls, society disintegrates, and you have to protect your cave — sorry, your home — from the marauding hordes.

That’s exactly what the gun manufacturers want you to think, so you keep buying. They know that hunting will never again be the pastime it once was, and as more Americans move from rural areas to the suburbs and cities, their natural market withers.

That “responsible gun owner” politicians talk about, the one who reverentially passes down to his son the bolt-action rifle his father gave him? That guy isn’t good for business. The manufacturers need the other guy, the one who fears he may not be all the man he could be.


 

 

11 comments:

Paladin said...

I keep thinking each of these cut-and-pastes has to be the stupidest... and the next one is even stupider. There's so much wrong information in here I don't know where to start.

I'll keep it really, really simple and just address the "note to NRA" graphic at the end:

#1 Columbine did NOT have an armed guard there when the shooting occurred. A Colorado Sheriff's deputy was supposed to be there, but was not on campus when the shooting happened. He is now Pro-AWB. He's also in favor of armed police in the schools as the NRA suggests.

Columbine was a magical gun-free zone failure.

#2. Virginia Tech does have its own Police Force. AWB would not have stopped the shooting there. Virginia Tech shooter used handguns. Campus forbid carrying of handguns by licensed permit holders. A campus the size of VT is more like its own city than an elementary school.

Viginia Tech was a Magical gun-free zone failure.

#3. Stupidest situation of them all. Did you know that soldiers and staff at US military bases in America aren't allowed to carry weapons?... Trained Fucking Soldiers who risk their life in defense of their country have to disarm when on their home base in the US. That's part of why so many people were killed. Responders who actually ended the incident were civilian police.

Ft Hood was a magical gun-free zone failure.

Do you ever research anything you post Cal? Or do you just regurgitate anything that seems to agree with what you believe already?

Think for yourself.

Kal said...

One man's facts are another man's propaganda.

Paladin said...

Be careful, Calvin.

Someone could read that statement in light of the bad information your spreading - and infer that you are intentionally posting false and/or misleading information in an attempt to forward your agenda, rather than just being lazy.

Kal said...

What am I? Fox News? You calling me lazy is something I wear like a badge of honor.

Paladin said...

To each his own, then. I had thought you more honorable than that.

Debra She Who Seeks said...

*facepalm*

Hobgoblin238 said...

Gotta agree with Paladin. Guns banned in Mexico...Kids by the hundreds are killed for refusing to join the Zetas...BY GUNS. If they had their own it would be different.

Kal said...

You would kill each other off faster than an ecoli outbreak.

Kelly Sedinger said...

Columbine: The police officer was not 'on campus', but very nearby, patroling a park where the kids hung out. He received a call from a custodian, got back there, and actually exchanged fire with Eric Harris. Let's not make it like he was across town or something.

But in any case, the real issue is not 'magical gun-free zones', as Paladin derisively calls them, presumably because he thinks more guns are going to make everything better. The real issue is the availability of these things in the first place. Reading the account of how the shooter in the Ft Hood shootings purchased his guns in the first place is pretty damned scary, setting aside the obvious issue of why anyone in their right mind needs a gun like that to begin with.

All guns are for is killing things. That's it. To hell with them. We banned fucking lawn darts in this country because a handful of kids were hurt or killed with them. But guns? Hell, who cares -- kids in coffins? Why, we need MOAR GUNS NOW!!!

Hobgoblin238 said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZjXJBpV9YRI

david_b said...

Cal, you HAVE TO UNDERSTAND, perhaps one day sir..., perhaps one day.

Your 'laziness' can hurt a LOT of people, especially those who actually lost loved ones in those despicable situations. It is cruel to rewrite (or re-insinuate..) history for those whose pain is trying to heal. There are wounds worse than gun shots. Ask DrGoat if you have to.

Stay Cool, sir. I know folks have a 'choice' whether to read tripe or not on blogs, but Coolness starts with feeling.