Saturday Open Thread [12.15.12]

Filed in Open Thread by on December 15, 2012

So how about some content for this thread? Once again, thanks so much to everyone who came out to celebrate the holidays with us last night. It really is fun to see all of you, and so great to know that we have such generous readers.

Everyone will have the shootings in CT on their minds for awhile now. I see lots of energy about pushing for a conversation about guns in our so-called civilized society. What I do know is that we won’t be able to claim the mantle of being “civilized” until the lives of our children are more valuable than our guns. It is odd that we are more ready to defend the right to “bear arms” at the expense of any right to the safety of your kids. That said, this is an interesting Twitter exchange with Rupert Murdoch:

The school shootings were not with automatic weapons, but the point is pretty clear — Murdoch could turn his entire propaganda machine towards this issue and make a real difference.

Last, I read an amazing article that does a better job than I’ve even been able to do in articulating just how silly the idea of keeping arms against the “tyranny of the government” is — you are out gunned by any stretch of the imagination and you are subject to a level of surveillance that will nip any of that in the bud, anyway. Your well-regulated militia will not kick anybody’s ass:

As a result, Americans maintain the belief that they will still be able to reform and/or defeat government on its soil using “The Second Amendment.” This clause of the Bill of Rights makes way for Americans to maintain armaments much in the same spirit of 1775, such that its citizens might once again rise up with muskets whenever necessary to Defeat Tyranny on Their Soil.

There is one major problem with this dangerously outdated assumption: the chasm between government weaponry and civilian weaponry is comically large. Like, from here to Venus large. So large that your defense of arming every schizophrenic and bipolar douchebag with AR-15s because you want to “prevent tyranny from taking root” is absurdly, ridiculously stupid.

Please go read the whole thing.

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"You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas." -Shirley Chisholm

Comments (12)

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  1. geezer says:

    Nobody has mentioned it yet, so let me say that the teachers in Sandy Hook Elementary saved many lives with their courage and quick action to protect the children in their care. Next time you hear people slagging public educators, remind them of that.

  2. John Young says:

    public educators are selfless protectors of children, at all levels, but most of all our elementary educators. Those that slam teachers as greedy and as union thugs, have it all wrong and they always have.

    to you comment geezer, I say: Amen!

  3. puck says:

    An older piece from The Onion that is, unfortunately, evergreen:

    http://www.theonion.com/articles/nra-sets-1000-killed-in-school-shooting-as-amount,28352/

  4. puck says:

    What a weak god that puny humans can keep him out of schools.

  5. geezer says:

    What was Huckabee’s reaction when that jerk shot up a Universalist-Unitarian church in Tennessee a few years back — that’s what they get for not letting God in their church?

  6. Dana Garrett says:

    Just heard a report that the shooter’s mother was a gun nut survivalist type who used to take her mentally ill son to gun ranges with her and let him shoot her guns. Doesn’t the NRA encourage parents to educate their children about shooting guns?

  7. geezer says:

    I hadn’t heard that, Dana, but I read that she was an “avid gun collector.” Is that journalistic shorthand for the same thing?

  8. puck says:

    I just read the mother had five guns, but it was not yet confirmed whether her guns were used to do the shooting. Just what we need; one more data point proving guns don’t keep you safe.

  9. puck says:

    “What was Huckabee’s reaction when that jerk shot up a Universalist-Unitarian church”

    Wrong God; worship at your own risk.

  10. Joe Cass says:

    National Shooting Sports Foundation, Newton Conn. huzzah

  11. Pope Says Gay Marriage Poses A Threat To ‘Justice And Peace’ In World Day Of Peace 2013 Address

    Odd. I’ve never heard of, read about or witnessed a married gay couple shoot up a school, mall, church, etc. Gay men & women typically don’t rape little boys/cover up for rapists, either. Shame we can’t say that about the Catholic Priests.