America's Tragedy Is Its Culture of Fear—Armed With Millions of Guns
By: Anthony L. Fisher (The Daily Beast)
There are a lot of good articles around. This one is special.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
PATRIOTIC SHAME
"Patriotic" culture warriors are terrified of drag queens, "illegals," and extremely rare vaccine injuries. But tens of thousands of annual gun deaths—meh.
Anthony L. Fisher
Senior Opinion Editor
Updated Apr. 22, 2023 3:05AM ET / Published Apr. 21, 2023 7:31PM ET opinion
I've long avoided writing about anything related to guns—being both largely unfamiliar with firearms, and lacking a passionate view on either "gun control" or "gun rights."
Judging by national polling on the subject, I suppose you'd call me "middle of the road" on guns, believing citizens do indeed have the constitutional right to bear arms, but that the government can (and should) impose certain limitations on that right. (This is the view of both the average American and the average member of the NRA.)
I don't have a legal background and don't claim to be an expert on constitutional interpretations of the Second Amendment, though I suspect the word "well-regulated" is in there for a reason. And while I wish the Founding Fathers (or their near descendants) would have had the sense to be a little more specific about the rights of "the people" to own and carry instant gratification machines that are also instruments of death—I accept that this is America. We are a gun culture.
Still, I find gun abolitionists to be living in a fantasy world. You're never going to ban guns in the United States. The country is too big, with too many wildly different cultures, and a federalist system that makes such top-down edicts essentially impossible. Guns outnumber people in this country, and probably always will.
Most Americans who feel strongly about their constitutional right to own guns will not give them up voluntarily, and if you think the government will someday go door-to-door demanding people fork over their weapons, please allow me to remind you of the fact that many Americans believed government workers going door-to-door to offer free, voluntary COVID-19 vaccines was a harbinger of oncoming Stalinism (or Hitlerism). That should disabuse you of the notion that there will ever be a peaceful de-weaponization of the American population.
But after so many years as a gun policy agnostic, I've been moved by the right's myriad culture war panics to wonder why the same tribes who provide U.S. gun culture with its intellectual and political heft have absolutely nothing to say about America's heritage of gun death?
UNITE BE AFRAID OR DIE
The MAGA flag-humpers, the DeSantis stans, the edgelord libertarians, to name a few—they're all freaked out about something.
It could be Twitter's pre-Elon Musk content moderation policies—"Worse than Watergate!" It could be temporary vaccine mandates in public spaces that mostly ended in 2021—"You're never going to force me to take the New World Order clot shot!" And, of course, LGBTQ-themed books and biographies of civil rights figures in school libraries—"Keep your porn and critical race theory out of our kids' brains, you groomer woke moralists!"
Yet, the roughly 20,000 gun-related deaths in the U.S. last year (if you count suicides, it's more than double that amount) don't move the right's culture war outrage needle. Not one bit.
Sure, they'll wax poetic about the dangers of "Democrat" cities—the deteriorating public safety of San Francisco, the endless violent crime on the south side of Chicago, and the attacks on a federal building in Portland staged by antifa clowns that happened three years ago. These all still strike fear and loathing in the hearts and minds of Fox News viewers—but not the fact that America holds a unique and shameful place as the Western world's capital of gun violence.
It's a common mistake to confuse anecdotes with data. But drag story hour videos on Libs of TikTok, breathless talk by cryptic-speaking Joe Rogan guests of a vast conspiracy to hide countless COVID vaccine injuries, and Toni Morrison books in school libraries have all been used as evidence to prove Western civilization is in peril. (Or that Communist China, the World Economic Forum, and Bud Light are all aligned in a conspiracy to turn Americans into self-hating groomers with blood clots.)
Since we've established that anecdotes matter when it's your point to be made , let's briefly note a few uniquely American stories from the past week.
In a small town in Alabama, 32 people were shot (four killed) at a birthday party. Also last week, in upstate New York, a 20-year-old woman was shot and killed by a 65-year-old man after the car she was in mistakenly turned into his driveway. (Police said it was "a very rural area with dirt roads," poor cell service, and "easy to get lost.") And in another case of a "good guy with a gun" defending his castle—a 16-year-old boy in Kansas City, looking to pick up his siblings from a friend's house, mixed up the address and was shot in the head by an 84-year-old man after mistakenly knocking on the man's door.
And because this is America, the anecdotes can go on and on—like the two cheerleaders shot in Texas for accidentally opening the wrong car door in a parking lot, and the 6-year-old girl and her dad in North Carolina who were shot by a neighbor, reportedly after an errant basketball rolled into his yard.
That's five different states, in just a few days.
GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, TERRIFIED PEOPLE WITH GUNS KILL PEOPLE
Again, the plural of anecdote is not data. And as the right is wont to note, the vast majority of gun deaths are not in mass shootings, they're killings of the everyday American variety—with handguns.
It wouldn't be hard to scrape local news sites for even more anecdotal evidence, but there's no need, because the hard data is devastating enough. To cite just one piece of such data, over the past two years gun deaths for people under the age 18 are up 50 percent .
Still, the right-wing fearmongering culture warriors have nothing to say. However, I don't have any doubt that had any one of the aforementioned shootings been committed by an undocumented immigrant or a Muslim fundamentalist, the "Don't Tread on Me" right would be calling for the suspension of all kinds of liberties, so precious is even a single American life snuffed out by "the other." And if these deaths had been attributed to COVID vaccines, Joe Rogan's guests would be lining up to demand their Nobel Prizes.
But when it's Americans killing each other, the enormity of the numbers doesn't resonate. Neither does the evidence that points to a culture of fear being the driving force in a lot of these killings.
The Daily Beast's Matt Lewis—a gun-owning conservative who lives in West Virginia—last weekend tweeted a story about a time he got lost in North Dakota and had to convince a would-be vigilante posse that he meant no harm when he pulled into the wrong driveway. Here's how The Atlantic 's Derek Thompson described the phenomenon: "More guns -> more deadly civilian violence -> more total paranoia -> more unjustified shootings -> more paranoia -> more shootings," adding, "Fear, protectiveness, anger, revenge-seeking… these aren't American emotions. They're human emotions, and America has made the decision to arm [people] with deadly machines through which these inevitable emotions can be expressed."
The Daily Beast contributor Nicholas Grossman cited data that showed even with the brief spike in violent crime nationally in 2020, levels are markedly lower than they were at the start of the 2010s, to say nothing of previous decades. Grossman wrote, "An info environment that calls the bottom of this graph a terrifyingly massive crime wave, lies that cities burned down, lies that prosecutors don't charge, insists we're on the verge of collapse, and tells people they need guns to take matters into their own hands isn't healthy."
Gun culture is, in many ways, a fear culture.
YOU'LL PRY MY CAR FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS
As previously stated, I don't believe gun abolition is possible, or even advisable in a country forever awash in deadly weapons. But anarcho-capitalists and gun fetishists alike both believe in private property, which requires certain protections from the government, which requires obeying laws that infringe on certain freedoms.
For instance, to operate a car, you need to be licensed by the government, your car must be registered with the government, and you're even obligated to buy insurance for your car.
Why?
Because you or someone driving your car might kill someone. Therefore, the government requires you to be able to pass the most rudimentary of operating tests and correctly answer a few basic questions about traffic laws. It also requires a record of your car's ownership and compliance with the state's registration requirements—including insurance in the event your car damages people or property.
"'There's no connection between having a gun and shooting someone with it, and not having a gun and not shooting someone...and you'd be a fool and a communist to make one.'"
But where in the Constitution does it say the gubmint can impose on my right to own and drive a dangerous shitbox? It doesn't. But you comply anyway.
It's a cliche, but the same basic requirements mandated of vehicular enthusiasts should also be made of gun owners.
Will it immediately solve the scourge of gang crime in the inner city? Will it cut down on suicides—which are dramatically fewer in countries without instant murder machines so readily available? Will drivers who make a wrong turn be less likely to be mowed down by trigger-happy suburbanites?
I don't know. It's possible none of this makes any difference. And I'm very wary of the instinct to "Do something, anything!" in the face of a crisis. Such panic-driven policy-making is how you end up with the Patriot Act, or "Papers, Please" laws to crack down on undocumented immigrants in Arizona, or do-gooder progressive schools forcing kids to wear masks outdoors in 2023.
But this is more than a crisis, it's part of the fabric of American society' and it should be a national shame. Yet it's met with a shrug by libertarians who are great at diagnosing societal ills but too often run for cover in culture-war bullshit when asked to propose a solution. And for much of the rest of the right, gun violence is the self-fulfilling prophecy to demand even more guns in more public places —the "good guy with a gun" fallacy.
Along with drag story hours and "genocidal COVID vaccines," the activist right has really been up in arms over America's supposed declining patriotism.
It's true that there is a loud and prominent subset of the academic and activist left that considers America an irredeemably racist and unjust place, and who inexplicably believe communism will totally work this time around and won't immediately descend into an authoritarian police state.
But there are a lot of people who think their country is pretty swell, and are grateful to have been born into it, but also don't think of their country as a delicate and jealous lover that needs to be constantly reassured.
It's OK to be ashamed of your country when it launches wars of choice that are morally indefensible and politically counterproductive. It's OK to be ashamed of your country when it arbitrarily locks up its own citizens during a racist panic. It's OK to be ashamed of your country when a defeated president allies with neo-fascist street gangs to sack the Capitol—and then hours later 147 congressional Republicans cast their votes in favor of the coup attempt.
"...when it's Americans killing each other, the enormity of the numbers don't resonate. Neither does the evidence that points to a culture of fear being the driving force in a lot of these killings."
I consider myself a patriotic American—I pay my taxes and to quote Megadeth's Dave Mustaine, "I go to court when I have to."
But I'm ashamed of the undue political influence held by gun fetishists whose only answer to our culture of gun violence—be it tied to the inner-city drug trade, hotheads popping off at a party, or panicky homeowners living in terror that the BLM/antifa/fentanyl blob is going to show up at their front door disguised as a teenager looking to pick up his siblings—is for easier access to guns.
The late comedian Bill Hicks, in 1991, performed a routine about the disparity between gun deaths in the U.S. and the U.K. (where it is rare even for police to carry handguns, and all but unheard of among the public). With savage irony, Hicks surmised: "There's no connection between having a gun and shooting someone with it, and not having a gun and not shooting someone… and you'd be a fool and a communist to make one."
Again, the data is there. While there are outliers—like heavily progressive Vermont—that have high gun ownership rates and relatively low gun death tolls, for the most part there's an obvious correlation between states where a lot of people own guns and states with a lot of gun deaths.
As of 2021, Montana ranks highest among states in percentage of armed citizens, and 7th overall in per capita gun death rates. Five other states are in the top 10 on both lists: Wyoming, Alaska, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama. But you'd be a fool and a communist to make any connection between the two.
Guns are more American than baseball, apple pie, and Chevrolet. They're not going anywhere. But what if… hear me out… proponents of gun culture actually demonstrated some patriotism for our bleeding country and some responsibility to our fellow Americans?
If we're talking data, and not anecdotes, there is no argument that guns are making Americans safer. We'd be better off without them—or at least, a whole lot less of them. But since we're stuck with them forever, and the current methods are not working, maybe we can experiment with something different?
We're a country of pioneers and innovators, and sometimes we even unite to undo historic wrongs committed by our government. There's no reason we can't look at our culture of irrational fear, tied to our culture of firearm worship, and say, "Let's do just a little better than this."
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Exactly, with other problems, we take action. We have 32.1 deaths per 100,000 and we have a war on drugs. We have 14.7 deaths from fire arms, to include suicide, but are afraid to have a war on guns.
"Thou shalt not have guns." was one of the 11th to 15th Commandments written by God's hand on the third tablet that "Moses" Brooks dropped and smashed when delivering the Commandments to the Hebrew people. But seriously, America is doomed due to the Second Amendment and a SCOTUS that will defend it and never amend or cancel it. As I've said on NT a few times already, the only solution for America is for EVERYONE to have guns and ammunition "in order to protect themselves".
The USA has two processes to amend or abolish an amendment, neither requires SCOTUS.
I'm not arguing with your comment, but since I never had cause to study American history or law I'm just curious - Is it not possible to challenge those methods in some legal way that could still find its way to the SCOTUS?
Article V of the Constitution provides two ways to propose amendments to the document. Amendments may be proposed either by the Congress, through a joint resolution passed by a two-thirds vote, or by a convention called by Congress in response to applications from two-thirds of the state legislatures.
I think we have been seeing that play out actually , the attempt to somehow "get around" both the amendment and the constitution itself which ends up in the USSC.
the issue is that there really is no way to do either , the amendment is on of governmental limitation , meaning it limits what the government and elected body CAN do without violating it , some of the legislation that has been judged has been deemed over reach meaning the legislatures went too far ( some think not far enough ) in what they proposed in the effort to control .
As for trying to "get around the constitution , well some may think that they can simply legislate some law , but forget that it also has to fit within what the body of the constitution also say is limited and protected , who hasnt heard , "if not for that pesky 2nd amend , we would be able to do as we see fit ", well to do that one cant simply legislate away the amendment , they must actually change the document in a way that would allow such legislation .
And the 2 methods of changing the document , is not exactly as easy as some would think because it requires a certain amount of agreement that currently does not exist .
only the first 10 amendments came out of the constitutional convention method , all the rest were contrived by the congressional method . and in the history of the Constitution , there has only ever been a single convention , and i have my own theory as to why thats the case .
I will focus in on that one sentence .
And that is where the differences lie , what would be considered reasonable , in one place something would be reasonable , yet in a different locale , it is unreasonable , the old what may work one place wont in another .
Currently we have 10 states that ban "Assault weapons" , by contrast we have 26/27 states that have eliminated the need for licensing for its state residents to carry, Nebraska being the latest state to go the constitutional carry route just this past week .
I have been watching articles about firearms sales recently , and the common driver of those sales is people thinking they need some form of self protection / defense , and a good majority of those sales are to first time firearms buyers in demographics that in the past it was unheard and thought of that they would make such a purchase . I think that says a lot about their level of trust that the government can keep them safe .
The constitutions 2nd A, simply recognized an already existing right of humans to have a means of self defense that existed long before this nation was a gleam in someone's eye , for some it falls within their means of what they can afford , and some things definitely work better than others with less risk to those employing them .
If a person can defend themself , they can certainly defend their community , state and country if the need be or comes about .
i was just reading about a woman that got a little "too close " to one of those "high capacity assault cows " last year in yellowstone , she tripped while running away and played dead hoping it would go away . she lucked out and it did , usually it would have stomped a new mudhole using a human for the water factor .
reminded me of the movie Eldorado when mississippi dove under the horses thinking a horse will not step on a man .....
"Still, I find gun abolitionists to be living in a fantasy world. You're never going to ban guns in the United States. The country is too big, with too many wildly different cultures, and a federalist system that makes such top-down edicts essentially impossible. Guns outnumber people in this country, and probably always will."
The author is essentially correct in his views. But I disagree that there is a gun culture or fetish in the US. That whole idea is stupid and silly. The vast majority of gun crimes and violence is committed by criminals and a very small number of disturbed and angry people. Again...a vast majority of gun owners are law abiding and responsible citizens...they are not the problem. No number of new and "common sense" gun laws and tightened background checks will ever solve the problem. The same groups that want more restrictions on guns are the same ones who fail to enforce existing laws and are guilty of being soft on crime and criminals. Their only desire is to give the optics that they are "doing something" about gun violence, when in truth, they enable it.
The Second Amendment could be amended or canceled, but it would be very difficult, and it would not be up to the SCOTUS, but up to a majority of the States.
No one is trying to ban guns though.
IMO it would be a useless endeavour.
I agree, overall a good analysis but he just couldn’t help himself and lost credibility when he resorted to using phrases like MAGA flag-humpers, the DeSantis stans and edgelord libertarians.
Telling, very tellling.
U.S. gun show
Am I imagining things or are those guns decorated with "bling" ?
Not much of an argument for claiming guns are nothing but a tool.
Look at the dumb bitch pointing the gun at herself.
Is the guy who shot the cheerleaders because one of them mistakenly entered his car "mentally ill"? Or did he feel empowered by the presence of a gun within his reach? Of course there is a "gun culture", and it is dangerous.
How are we going to dissuade this gun culture?
There is no gun culture. I have no idea of what culture he represents. Just a paranoid idiot with a gun.
A reasonable analysis but it completely misses the fact that most guns and gun owners in the US, will never be involved in a gun crime let alone a homicide. That is simply fact.
So, we need to concentration on the areas that we know are a problem. Most require no new laws but only require aggressive enforcement of existing laws and consequential adjudication of those who break them.
Aggressive action, monitoring and adjudication of these three items will significantly reduce gun crime and death without unnecessarily infringing on law abiding citizen rights.
This isn’t rocket engineering.
Well, the narrative inches closer to a truth but stridently refuses to cross the threshold into enlightenment. The result is nothing more than phony intellectualism. The actual truth is that guns are not the problem. The United States is becoming a more violent society. A reasonable argument can be made that guns facilitate that violence. But removing guns will not remove the violence.
Keep in mind that demands to ban guns are also motivated by fear. Gun control advocates want the government to be their gun. The proposed gun bans exclude the government; the government has the guns so anti-gun advocates don't need them. But that won't address the less than virtuous motivations for violence. Those less than virtuous motivations won't be allayed by gun control. Gun control won't transform the United States into a less violent society.
BFD. There are free societies all over the world where the government has most if not all of the guns. I guess the folks in those countries are not as paranoid as American "patriots" are.
Could be and probably different constitutions and different cultural histories.
I’ve lived out of the country for 10 years and traveled even more, I learned different cultures, different customs,
The second amendment requires "well regulation'. That could mean whatever we want it to. The gun culture has succeeded in neutralizing that phrase and all other rational thoughts about defusing our "gun culture".
People who claim there is no "gun culture" in America are not only fooling themselves but hurting our country.
There are things that are more important than giving the second amendment the most expansive interpretation possible.
Didn’t “well regulated” mean, accurate, trained or ready, in the late 18th century?
The following source gives examples from the Oxford English Dictionary of how the idiom was used , demonstrating how the idiom 'well-regulated' has meaning beyond 'regulations' i.e. laws.
> 1709: "If a liberal Education has formed in us well-regulated Appetites and worthy Inclinations."
> 1714: "The practice of all well-regulated courts of justice in the world."
> 1812: "The equation of time ... is the adjustment of the difference of time as shown by a well-regulated clock and a true sun dial."
> 1848: "A remissness for which I am sure every well-regulated person will blame the Mayor."
> 1862: "It appeared to her well-regulated mind, like a clandestine proceeding."
It sounds like you are saying that the phrase "well regulated" in the second amendment doesnt mean anything at all. Did the framers include the phrase simply to mean 'appropriate'?
It doesnt matter what precisely the founders meant by "well regulated", it is in the amendment and can be used to regulate gun ownership. Even the right wing god Scalia said so.
Way to miss the point. Gun control advocates are relying on designated shooters. Gun control advocates are still part of the gun culture; they want guns in society, too.
Many of those countries, you speak of, have disarmed law enforcement. But those governments also deploy the military against their own people. How is that a free society?
Is verbal abuse violence? Is attempting to inflict a psychological wound less violent than attempting to inflict a physical wound? How about doxing? Is attempting to inflict an economic wound less violent than attempting to inflict a physical wound? As our President has demonstrated, boycotts and sanctions are weapons of war.
What new regulations do you want to see?
What new regulations do you want to see?
Universal background checks, mandatory safety training, licensing, registration and liability insurance would be a good start...
How about bothering to enforce gun laws already on the books before we start passing new laws?
How about we try that FIRST?
All guns registered.
You should need a license to own a gun just like you need a license to drive a car.
You should have to take a "driving test" about gun safety that would impart the realization that guns are a last resort to conflict resolution and not a knee jerk.
No new AR-15 type guns for general use. Many of the mass shooters in the past few years had recently purchased their guns. Obviously the ones who already have them can't be confiscated, but we could limit the ammunition available for them.
Mandatory education about gun violence in the senior year of all high schools.
Extensive background checks with the purchase of every legally sold gun.
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The issue is not so much with "regulations" as it is with the culture, which must be changed. The NRA and the political right want everyone to be armed all the time. We can see where that disaster is headed.
It is hard to debate with you because you have erratic thoughts.
I agree with this point. I enjoyed target shooting, hunting and going to gun shows when it was about firearm sports. The culture start shifting more towards self defense, survivalist and paramilitary then.
I don’t understand that culture.
Erratic thoughts? I'm pointing at that the rise in violence is the root cause of what is happening. And violence is not limited to physical violence against individuals. Violence is not motivated by virtuous considerations.
My thoughts are not erratic. But they're not myopic, either. Guns are only a tool that facilitates violence. Banning guns may change the type of violence but, I contend, won't make the United States a less violent society. The less than virtuous motivations for violence will remain. And the violence will only utilize a different tool.
I have no issue if a state wants to require background checks on private sales even though it will not likely to reduce crime by much. It unenforceable unless all the guns already in the state are registered by the owners and listed in a state registry.
Why do you think licensing and registration are equivalent to confiscation?
"The NRA and the political right want everyone to be armed all the time."
Pure, unadulterated bullshit!
None of what you are proposing would have stopped everyday Chicago style gun violence, nor prevented even one of the mass shootings of recent years.
There is no way to stop everday street crime by new laws, and the weapons used by the mass killers have legally purchased because none of them have had police records or a history of judicial proceedings
The only place I've ever heard that is from the far right, the John Birch Society in particular. Koch brothers horseshit.
there is no way to stop people being shot for being in the wrong place at the wrong time . there was another incident yesterday of someone being shot at because they pulled into the wrong driveway. This is not because of mental illness, it is because people think it is their right.
Yes, Scalia was a conservative, but he was no god, and he was just as capable of being wrong and fallible as anybody else on the right or left.
Plenty of Democrats over the years have stated if they had the power they would confiscate all guns but it does no good to provide you the evidence as you will just dismiss or ignore it. Does the name Maxine Waters mean anything to you?
Don't forget Beto O'Rourke and his infamous "Hell yes, we are coming to take your AR-15!".
Didn’t he jump onto a table top to emphasize the point?
By “we” he meant someone else, he doesn’t have the stones to try to take someone’s AR.
Quite correct. I have absolutely NO paranoia about the possibility of being shot.
Exactly, Taiwan has way too small an Army to invade China. For the Taiwanese, it’s not the quite the same.
Name one please.
Taiwan has nothing to do with my comment. I didn't know that America was so concerned about being invaded and thought that the Second Amendment was directed to concern about a rogue American government taking control.
Sorry, I thought your comment was about an absence of fear of being shot and I agreed with you.
The US 2nd Amendment acknowledged a fear of maintaining a standing US Army.
Thats an erratic thought, in my opinion. Or do you think people all over the place are going to beat each other to death with claw hammers?
They were doing it with hammers, axes, spears, swords and knives before we had guns. In some places they still do.
Before it happened, did you ever think something like OKC could happen here?
Those were times when, generally speaking, there were no police forces.
I dont think we have to worry about people fighting it out with swords on our city streets, even if we got rid of all the guns.
Why? An AR-15 is no different than any other semi automatic rifle except it looks scary
I thought the US not only maintains a standing army but plants it all around the world - at least 800 bases in foreign lands and increasing (e.g. new ones in Philippines). Does "standing army" mean something different?
You confuse me between when the Amendment was approved and today.
That's always a possibility. But it's more likely people will engage in non-physical violence. People are already trying to get people fired, trying to ruin reputations, trying to get law enforcement to arrest and imprison people over paper violations, mobbing places of business, disrupting normal activities, and generally trying to make people's lives as miserable as possible. Is non-physical violence any less damaging?
I think I'm the one who's confused.
That’s largely because crooks know they can’t pass a gun background check. That is if the N.I.C background check system works correctly.
Felons know they can’t pass a background check.
Folks who have been adjudicated mentally defective know they can’t pass a background check.
Unlawful users of illegal drugs know they can’t pass a background check.
Folks who are subject to a restraining order or PPO know they can’t pass a background check.
Illegal aliens or folks unlawfully in the country know they can’t pass a background check.
Folks with a dishonorable discharge from the US military can’t pass a background check.
Etc, etc .....
For some reason, I just thought of the surrender request scene on the bridge from the movie "A Bridge Too Far". I love that movie.
Might be because history has shown that every place that HAS gone to confiscation , first had registration and licensing requirements put in place first , it becomes a ready made list of where to go look .
As for licensing , so far 26/27 states have done away with that requirement , if someone is not a prohibited person and can pass the federal BGC to purchase , some could say that licensing is nothing more than a revenue generator for the state and could be used to financially price people out of firearms ownership by making the lic too expensive .
registration , see the above about making a list convenient for the government on where to go look if they decide to do something that in other cases might just get them shot .
neither of those things will have an effect on the violence in society presently , criminals and the like that do break the law , already have no regard for the laws , and dont follow them and wont follow any new ones .
Or dianne Finestien , "if i had 51 votes to ban firearms , i would say mr and mrs america turn them in ..." not an accurate post on what she actually said but real close , and that was said close to 30 years ago.
What kind of idiot would write such a thing, and what special kind of idiot would lap it up?
Remarks like that are just fucking DUMB, so no surprise they are like manna to gun control freaks.
Let’s start limiting rights, if you can’t pass a civics test, you can’t vote. That’s just common sense! Right?
Wouldntt that disqualify mostly MAGA voters?
Perhaps some significant segments of the Dem base as well.
How about at least a 100 IQ level?
There goes automatic Democrat wins in Democrat run cities
There goes automatic Democrat wins in Democrat run cities
no gun culture ?
She needs to be taught to never throw her pistol into the dirt.
any reason why an 8 or 9 year old girl should be that into guns?
My daughter was very much into Broadway musicals by that age, isn’t it wonderful the diversity of interests kids have.
Not in this case.
Exactly, the diversity of interests.
Oh please. This little girl was taught to love guns.
Here's a screen shot for you Buzz, so you can see what we are talking about
And?....
Perhaps, my daughter loved musicals on her own.
I didn't vote that up because some might get the idea that I thought that what I saw was a good thing. Mind you, in a country where 6-year-olds walk around with guns and shoot people why would that picture surprise anyone?
No surprise here.
In the US we like for parents to be responsible for their kids. Not our government like some other countries prefer.
It’s called freedom.
"Freedom" has its limitations, is subject to differing interpretations. and what America calls freedom is not a universal concept. I enjoy the freedom of being able to do whatever I want to do, and an important freedom that I am very comfortable with is freedom from the fear of the possibility of being shot. As well, where I live there is freedom from the suffering of abject poverty, and parents and grandparents ARE responsible for their kids.
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So are you free to see everything on the internet like you tube? Are you free to go and criticize the current government?
Over the years I have travelled to and spent time in about 17 different countries, and I never got into any trouble because I believe in the adage "Do as the Romans do" and I have never broken any of their laws. As I've said above, "freedom" has its limitations in EVERY country, including the USA. Seems to me there are things in the USA that are banned or are not available to you, and do you do the things that are banned or don't have access to in your country? Sure I would like to have access to YouTube (but I have alternatives such as bilibili and youku), and I would like to eat Canadian butter tarts but they're not available here. I'll bet there are things in this world that are not available to you as well, but I don't intend to taunt you about it. I'll leave the taunting up to you. In any event, as I said already, I have all the freedom I require.
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Glad you are enjoying your freedom. Too bad millions of your fellow countryman can’t say the same thing. Perhaps their re-education will be completed soon and they can enjoy some of that “freedom” as well.
Like most Americans my last worry is getting shot. I sometimes worry about getting attacked by crazed bums on the street or getting hit on the road by a shitty driver or stepping on a rusty nail.
Those rusty nails are dynamite!
Yet here, an employee of The US Department of Defense can falsely accuse their Commander In Chief of crimes including filing false tax returns on a public forum with no real repercussions...
Good pay for not going in while trolling online, if you can get it!
Does the US imprison a higher percentage of Americans than China does its citizens, because Trump made us great again?
Trying to frame China, as offering more freedom and better human rights than the US, is a fools errand.
Yet the US imprisons a way higher percentage of its citizens!
Calling it reeducation or punishment is really splitting hairs...
LOL My "fellow countrymen" are a lot more free than I am - they are able to do things I'm not permitted to do, such as own real estate, carry on a business, get any kind of job, etc because my visitor's visa does not allow me to do those things but I have neither the need nor desire to do any of those things now, and nobody I know here or have ever known here has needed "re-education" and in that regard I think you're referring to those that are a small percentage of Muslims who are separatists and religious extremists in Xinjiang. You're making accusations about things you know absolutely nothing about.
Getting shot might have been the 'last worry" of a lot of students, shoppers, worshippers, people knocking on the wrong door, or turning around in someone else's driveway, or taking part in a parade, or chasing after a ball that rolls onto a neighbour's property, etc etc in America, and I recall reading a story a few years back about a man sitting in his living room reading and he got shot by a stray bullent then went through his window but guess what - they got shot. Even Presidents get shot, like JFK and Reagan, or Rock Stars like John Lennon. I'll bet they felt as "safe" as you. As much as you're certainly no friend of mine, I do hope you never get shot, and hope that no NT member gets shot, but I ESPECIALLY hope that my son and his young family in Wisconsin never gets shot.
See there you go on your errand.
Trying to equate being sent to a re-education camp with no due process, with punishment via due process, is truly that fools errand.
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I understand China just fine. You on the other hand prefer to be disingenuous about it here regularly.
Documented human rights abuses by the Chinese government on its citizens include but is not limited to; capricious detention in internment camps, repression of cultural and religious expression, coercive population control, forced labor camps, torture, physical and sexual abuse, mass surveillance and forced family separation.
But don’t take my word for it.
One would need to be completely obtuse to really believe people have more freedoms and human rights under communist Chinese control.
Link?
I bet if you Google it you could find a pic where they're laid out in a swastika too.....
I'll leave that up to you.
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American gun love illustrated. I'll bet there are people who would hang that picture on their wall, or at least put it on their fridge door.