Another fucking spree shooting. Great.

The most amazing thing about that is that those are his actual words.

ah, the has-been/clickfarm symbiosis economy at work

dismissing rednecks doesn't make them go away. these are the thoughts of tens of millions of americans

I am sorry you lost your child. I myself have a son and daughter and the one thing I never want to go through, is what you are going through now. But:

As harsh as this sounds - your dead kids don't trump my Constitutional rights.

Richard Martinez, whose son (Christopher) was among the murdered, choked back tears at a news conference, blaming politicians the next day: "The talk about gun rights. What about Chris' right to live?" Martinez said - and much more.

There are no critical words for a grieving father. He can say whatever he wants and blame whoever he'd like - it's okay by me. You can't take a step in his shoes - at least I can't.

But the words and images of Mr. Martinez blaming "the proliferation of guns", lobbyists, politicians, etc.; will be exploited by gun-grab extremists as are all tragedies involving gun violence and the mentally ill by the anti-Second Amendment Left.

As a father, husband and a man, it is my responsibility to protect my family. I will stand up for that right vehemently. Please believe me, as a father I share your grief and I will pray for you and your family, as I do whenever I hear about senseless tragedies such as this.

We still have the Right to Bear Arms and I intend to continue to speak out for that right, and against those who would restrict it - even in the face of this horrible incident by this sad and insane individual. I almost said "Obama Voter" but I'm waiting for it to be official.

I noticed the mainstream media have stopped the practice of immediately reporting the psycho maniac is a conservative Tea Party Republican Christian. Guess they're sick of having to hide being wrong every time when it comes out the whacko votes Democrat?

Mr. Martinez and anyone calling for more restrictions on American's rights need to back off and stop playing into the hands of the folks who merely capitalize on these horrific events for their own political ends.

They don't care about your family or your dead children at all. They sound like they do, whereas I sound uncaring and like I say, harsh. Don't be fooled - I care about your family and mine. The future of our very liberty lies in the balance of this fight.

In conclusion, I cannot begin to imagine the pain you are going through, having had your child taken away from you. However, any feelings you have toward my rights being taken away from me, lose those.

the right to misuse apostrophes shall not be infringed!

I don't think he's called for the banning of guns, anyway

any gun legislation will be sold as "the banning of guns" though of course

They don't care about your family or your dead children at all. They sound like they do, whereas I sound uncaring and like I say, harsh. Don't be fooled - I care about your family and mine.

war is peace

very tempted to tell Mr. Plumber exactly HOW he can have his precious guns, but that wouldn't be very productive.

Time to embrace gun-grab extremism. The other side already paints our position that way no matter what, might as well just go there.

xp: who knows, after nine months he might give birth to a beautiful baby butt-gun

Trying to be more nuanced or compromising or whatever has obviously failed. Why concede their rhetorical point about the left having a hidden agenda? Be honest about our agenda, fuck the 2nd amendment, yes I am coming to take your guns away. Lets find out how useless they actually are against our cryptofascist police forces after all, the najority of whom strongly support gun control.

Tons of gun owners going out in death-by-cop infinitely preferable to dead innocent kids imo

I don't think "the second amendment is more important than the lives of our children" is a v persuasive bit of phrasing

no, it's sociopathic and bizarre. the 2nd amendment is a law and there are lots of laws that are stupid and have been repealed. it's not some unalienable right. WTF.

my favorite part of Veep this season was when she told the finnish lady "the 2nd amendment is a problem" which, let's face it, it is.

heaven forbid anyone say that though

i don't advocate confiscating guns. i advocate arming prisoners. after all, we can't take away the right to freedom of speech just because someone's in jail

I have had to explain the whole US gun-culture thing to two foreigners today in the aftermath of the UCSB shootings. which is hard b/c I don't really understand it myself.

frontier culture

I think it goes beyond the Richard Slotkin type of thesis but that's a big part of it.

rugged individualism, fear of black ppl + indigenous population, political mythologies of revolution against tyranny, hunting culture, frontierism... gun fetishism is kinda the most explicable of america's faults!

http://www.theonion.com/articles/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this,36131/

fear of black ppl

Ironically, it was exactly this that spurred Reagan to sign gun control measures in California in the late 60s:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/the-secret-history-of-guns/308608/?single_page=true

Republicans in California eagerly supported increased gun control. Governor Reagan told reporters that afternoon that he saw “no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.” He called guns a “ridiculous way to solve problems that have to be solved among people of good will.” In a later press conference, Reagan said he didn’t “know of any sportsman who leaves his home with a gun to go out into the field to hunt or for target shooting who carries that gun loaded.” The Mulford Act, he said, “would work no hardship on the honest citizen.”

rugged individualism, fear of black ppl + indigenous population, political mythologies of revolution against tyranny, hunting culture, frontierism... gun fetishism is kinda the most explicable of america's faults!

― Mordy, Tuesday, May 27, 2014 3:48 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's a lot to unpack, actually!

ban men

xpost

for a foreigner, I mean.

humankind, especially americans, are the deadliest animals alive

but also... the most dangerous game?

i don't advocate confiscating guns. i advocate arming prisoners. after all, we can't take away the right to freedom of speech just because someone's in jail

Loving this.

the amazing race

I dunno, is this legit?

http://atlasleft.org/tea-party-trolls-ammosexual-misogynistic-tweets-will-piss-you-off-images/

for kincannon that's actually fairly respectful

man

south carolina since its founding has been the most reliable source of toxic politics in america

and they still fly the confederate flag at the capital building

i blame andrew johnson

http://www.policymic.com/articles/89953/elliot-rodger-s-internet-history-reveals-something-more-sinister-than-just-misogyny

wait why is racism more sinister than misogyny.

racism+misogyny is more sinister than misogyny alone

here I was thinking they cancelled each other out.

http://thechrisgethardshow.tumblr.com/post/87041806996/overcome-your-programming-and-be-a-better-man

that is about the closest to otm thing I have read so far

forgive me if this comes off as provincial or whatever but i think malcolm harris has cool stuff to say sometimes and i'm curious for his inevitable al jazeera column on this, for people in the larger-scale press he usually hits intersectional stuff on the nose ime

re: Chris Gethard, apparently he went to my high school, probably just 4 years behind me. Noticed him popping up on friends facebook pages when he started getting known for improv stuff and been seeing him increasingly more and more on tv and whatnot. I think he's gonna get real famous soon, comedy-wise, though this post is getting a lot of attention.

i cannot read any more about this. i'm done.

I don't know who Chris Gerhard is but that is excellent

Wish he'd stop saying 'stick to your guns' tho

lol he quotes the chorus of The The's Lonely Planet almost verbatim

yeah stick to your guns not the greatest choice of words

The Gethard post lost me when he got to "no one was ever out to get me" because, especially for black people, sometimes "they" is a real thing and "they" actually ARE out to get you.

And when he propagated once again the "Columbine killers were lonely, shy kids getting back at their tormentors" myth.