I finished Wasteland 3, so I am entertaining myself watching a little Netflix. Decided to watch the space shuttle Challenger documentary, and I remembered Reagan’s speech that Nooners wrote for him, with the memorable lines of slipping the bounds of earth (which Peggy lifted from a WW1 or WW2 aviator’s poem, I can’t remember which), and how I still remember him giving that speech and how it really was the perfect speech and great for the nation. Can you imagine Hair Fuhrer even attempting to do something like that to heal the nation? Me either.
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been going back and forth on whether I should buy a rifle and a shotgun. I hate guns. I just have no use for them, I don’t like hunting, I don’t want to ever have to kill anything, I think people act more belligerent when they carry them, and I just wish they didn’t even exist. I think other than going shooting at the range with Tammy’s husband close to 20 years ago, I have not even touched one since I got out of the army.
But yet, here we are. I think Trump and his supporters are so delusional and so caught up in the cult, that when he loses, shit is going to go down. So I’m wondering- would it be irresponsible to not own a rifle at this point?
Knowing me, I’m 99% sure that I will end up not buying one. But what does it say when someone like me, who despises guns, who doesn’t panic about shit but prepares, thinks shit is so out of control it might be necessary?
mario
dude, I live in deepest blue new jersey and the same thought has crossed my mind.
Chetan Murthy
John, I forget, but Tammy is your sister? Maybe a compromise would be to go regularly from now until the emergency is over, to the range, and (re-)learn to shoot? So that when/if the time comes, the only missing bit is the gun and ammo? B/c I have to believe that, in your neck of the woods, that’ll be easier to find, than the necessary training to use it well.
Toldyouso
Well, here’s the thing John. Years ago I argued in this blog that people on the left should arm themselves and train themselves in tactics, strategy, etc. I got called a gun nut.
Also years ago I said that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a selfish asshole for not resigning early in the Obama presidency, for putting on a PR campaign about how she “works out with a Navy Seal” and starting that cringeworthy RBG has a posse nonsense. I said we would be paying for her selfishness for the next forty fucking years.
That’s when I got banned while posting under the name Amaranthine RBG.
And now look.
Better late than never, you stupid fucking assholes, but please try harder.
John Cole
@Toldyouso: IIRC, you were banned for being a fucking asshole. Looks like consistency is your strong suit.
John Cole
@Chetan Murthy: no she is my surrogate wife.
H.E.Wolf
I usually ask myself, when things seem dire: What would John Lewis do?
opiejeanne
@Toldyouso: Yeah, I remember you. You’re an asshole and I did not weep when they banned you.
cs
I already own a handgun. Been having conversations with the wife about whether or not we need a shotgun or AR-15. She hates guns and yet sometimes she initiates those conversations. I have a feeling we probably won’t get one. We live in a rural, 70% Trump voting area. If they all turn feral zombies after the election, there’s no hope for us. With or without a gun.
We’ve decided our best bet is waiting it out. Fleeing to a blue area if needed. Realizing we’re probably privileged in a way. If there is violence, it will be in the cities most likely. Shouldn’t be much where I am. And yes, it’s kinda crushing that we’re even talking about this or having to game it out.
Sonoran
Same here. I hate guns. Murder-suicide and another attempted suicide in my family because of guns. But I’m that concerned about this monster and his minions. FSM help us, I’m loosing faith in my countrymen.
CaseyL
I’m so sorry it’s come to this.
You’re not the only one thinking along those lines. I own a gun – a gift from a friend – which I have never even loaded. The friend who gave it to me wants to take me out shooting.
I do enjoy shooting (at skeets or paper targets). Things that go flash!bang! appeal to me, as they do to a lot of people. But the thought of firing it at a living thing is… not where I ever thought I’d be.
I have decided I can’t move to a place that’s a GOP stronghold, though. If I leave Seattle, it will have to be to someplace that is blue, or at least bluish-purple.
Origuy
John Gillespie Magee, Jr. was an American pilot flying with the Royal Canadian Air Force in WWII. He flew with a Spitfire squadron in Britain and was killed in a training flight on 11 December 1941. He wrote High Flight.
Sab
Cole, damn: you sound like my husband. I still drink so no guns for me, but our Trumpian neighbor across the street does scare me (why does her trump sign face my house instead of forward or sideways like a normal person with a yard sign?)
Robby-D
For the record, I’m in Canada, and the same thing crossed my mind – first about COVID and the terrible American response and the possibility of cross-border troubles, and second about the upcoming election.
Honestly? If you think about it, most Trumpers will still have the same comfortable-ish lives if Trump loses. There won’t be appetite for outright civil war, so IF there is any gun violence as a result, it’ll likely be both fringe and targeted (as in, drive to DC, or to some poor non-white neighbourhood, and assassinate/lynch). The likelihood that you of all people would need to defend yourself in your home is very very low, so getting a weapon for the purposes of self-defense seems wholly unnecessary – even as a visibly blue person in a state, county and city of red.
JCJ
I didn’t hear St Ronnie’s speech as I was way to busy for things like that, but I remember wondering why the thing had launched. The previous day I had read that if the temperature fell below some certain reading overnight the launch would be scrubbed and the predicted low was below that.
JoyceH
I’ve actually considered getting a slingshot and learning how to use it. The benefit would be that it would only be useful to someone who’d trained on it. Problem with a gun is that someone else could get ahold of it and then where would you be?
TaMara (HFG)
Yeah, had those same thoughts. But then I’m afraid I’d end up in a youtube video looking like the McCloskeys if I have a bad day.
And I’m also a really good shot with a rifle or shotgun, and I find that a little scary.
NoraLenderbee
Told you it was time for pie.
KrackenJack
My partner and I attended two of the ACA town halls held by House members back in 2009. I live out on the left coast, but about half the crowd were opponents. It was my first IRL encounter with the incredibly angry RWNJs shouting Fox talking points (No one can read 2700 pages! Death panels!)
On our way out of the second meeting I told my partner that we’d be using flame-throwers in tunnels before it was all over. I have yet to be convinced otherwise.
opiejeanne
@John Cole: OT, but how did your garden fare? Were you able to grow a lot of nice things to eat?
The last time I fired a gun was when I was in my 20s and we were shoot at tin cans in the high desert, 50 years ago,
Now my husband, age 73, is thinking about getting a gun because of all of this stuff, and because even though we live in a blue area, we have wing nut neighbors who have lost their damned minds. And they are armed. It has held us back from getting a yard sign for Biden/Harris, and we are a little worried about what comes next.
cokane
Don’t buy a gun. It’s delusional idiocy. I’m sorry but Democrats swept into important power in 2018 and no violence popped off because of it.
Look there are rightwing loons out there, but they’re physical cowards. Far more likely with a Trump defeat is to see the occasional Ammon Bundy thing or Cesar Sayoc thing. The odds of you being hurt by that are far far lower than the odds of your gun getting stolen or accidentally hurting someone.
And by buying a gun you just continue to add to the profit margins of the some of the worst businesses in the country.
opiejeanne
@CaseyL: I don’t remember if you currently have a job, but if you need a place to land with your cat(s), Ravensara says to get in touch. I have her contact info.
MobiusKlein
Given your history with mere garden implements, I can definitively say
Do
Not
Buy
A
Gun
VeniceRiley
My brother is an RWNJ and has a gun safe full of firepower. I suppose if I needed one I could scoot over there in under 30 minutes. Close enough for me. I’ve shot the heck out of some paper targets back in the day. But nothing was more scary than having one of his tiny kids pull a semiauto handgun out of the sofa cushions and point in my direction with an “Aunt VeniceRiley, what’s this?” I managed to keep very calm and take it. Safety was on, my brother said. Like that excuses the utter fear I felt that it would be dropped from tiny hands and someone end up dead. So that’s what a “responsible” doesn’t touch alcohol and has a first responder and homeland security responsibility job gets you. Even those white guys are so cosplay it is so scary. It was … 4 years ago? Still not over it
Meanwhile, future Mrs. VeniceRiley can subdue a known murderer 3x her size with a short metal stick. But it’s far more likely she diffuses situations by asking them to join her for a cuppa tea and hears them out and talks them down.
Sab
@cokane: See you, hear you, not sure I agree for my husband. Do agree for me.
Amir Khalid
O Bloglord, your dislike of firearms is the voice of the better angels of your nature. I live on the other side of the planet so I have no direct knowledge of this, but just how realistic is it to fear marauding bands of armed MAGATs? It seems (to me) as realistic as a corresponding MAGAT fear of marauding, masked and socially distanced Black Lives Matter rioters.
cokane
Doug Jones won an election in Alabama for chrissakes and no violence popped off
boatboy_srq
Not merely thinking of picking up firearms, but thinking of getting the appropriate permits so I can walk into the polling place wearing a tee with “I’m Queer and I Carry” splashed on it.
Probably not going to do it, but thinking about it – all of it – very seriously.
But then right now I’m in NoVA and we’ve just had a bunch of wingnuts try to intimidate early voters at the courthouse just miles from me.
Sab
@JoyceH: Where does one get a slingshot? Asking seriously for a friend.
joel hanes
Cole:
If you buy a gun, don’t tell anyone. Keep it safe, and keep it secret.
Find a place to practice that isn’t public.
Because if the community knows you have a gun, that makes you a hot looting prospect if things really go sideways, or if you just ever go away on vacation.
We once had half a dozen beautiful classic hunting and target long guns that were my grandfather’s legacy (he was a restoration-quality gunsmith, did hand-carved and hand-checkered stocks and forearms, ivory inlay work, turned his own one-off replacement screws on a machine lathe). My dad unfortunately made that public knowledge, and the next time my folks left home, a gang of thieves broke in and took the guns and everything else of value.
Sab
@boatboy_srq: Be careful. Please don’t get yourself shot making a statement. Statement would be made, but you would still be shot.
cokane
@Sab: Sorry but yall have been hitting the social media crackpipe too hard. MAGA’s do not take to the streets.
Again, you’ll get some brewing militia movement type stuff during the Biden years if he wins. You might even get a rightwing mass shooter. But the odds of you being present for the specific terrorist attack with your gun ready? Almost zero.
Hell, you’re way way more likely to be a victim of everyday, non-political crime. If you’re going to base your purchase on anything, base it on that.
All you’re doing is further drowning the country in guns and firearm companies in healthy profits.
hitchhiker
nope.
if it comes to needing a gun to defend myself or my property, I’d be the schmoe who managed to shoot herself and/or have the thing taken from me and used on me.
I just have to continue to believe there are lots more of us than them, and that there will be a long, slow leaking of the poisoned air from this ugly balloon. Yes, we’re looking at maybe 27% of Americans being bananapants, and yes, they feel empowered and vindicated and full of rage … but there is (I believe) an enormous segment of the population that remembers sanity and is willing to fight for it, especially if we have leadership.
Or, you know, it could be a shitshow until I die. Very possible.
opiejeanne
@Sab: I googled it and there are Professional Slingshots available. Lots of places sell them, apparently. Mostly hunting gear suppliers.
Sab
@Amir Khalid: Magats are more dangerous, in my opinion. BLM activists are every white peoples’ caretakers’ grandchildren.
Eljai
I know it looks dark right now, but there’s still a good chance we will make it through. That said, my oldest sister and I were talking that if the unthinkable happens, we will buy rifles. We really won’t. We don’t have any experience with guns. But there’s something kind of satisfying about threatening to do what magats are doing. See how they like it when a bunch of liberal middle-aged ladies start packing heat!
Anyway, as I said, it looks dark now. I know. The republicans really are a death cult. They’re mostly old white men (and some women) who want to retain power. But the future does not look like them. The energy is on our side — the side of the majority. We still have time to organize and turn things around. I have no fucking patience for doomporn about how we’re fucked for generations. Big shifts often happen when things look the worst.
MomSense
I know so many people who are thinking about buying a gun for the same reasons. I hate this timeline
Sab
@opiejeanne: Thank you. I will follow up. Lots of time on my hands these days.
joel hanes
@Sab:
https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Sports-Outdoors-Hunting-Shooting-Slingshots/zgbs/sporting-goods/3307780011
IMHO, unless you have a very strong wrist, you want one with a forearm brace.
piratedan
i’m just as torn… I loathe guns and while I understand the fun that comes for some with using them and watching things go kapow and kablooie and even the sense of challenging yourself to operate it efficiently and effectively… I don’t have that myself.
I find that with a good many tools, proper use and abuse is indeed a thing and after decades of propaganda that have shown that owning a gun means you’re dynamite in the sack, a self sufficient stalwart who can survive any potential calamity because of your savvy ownership qualities I’ve found that I don’t need one. I suspect that the temptation of having one in the house would inspire me to visit my local MAGA Murder Hornet’s Nest and do something unforgivable because of the outrage meter being pegged for me on a daily basis.
Perhaps I’ll find it different post election….
Raven Onthill
Ah, don’t feed us corvids.
I keep telling people that, at this time, for most of us, firearms are more dangerous to the owner and their household than to any enemy. The legitimate opportunities for use are rare, but the opportunities for accident and abuse are always present. There are limits to this: there are people who genuinely need firearms for self-defense, and rural people may have cause to concern themselves with predation.
That said, the likelihood that violence will result from or after this transition of power is high and maybe – maybe! – firearms would be of some use to people who at risk. We’re already seeing violence from the covidiots; there may be more.
Jay
Unless you are willing to draw and kill, ruthlessly, don’t get a gun.
You have to shoot with a cold heart.
You have to train and shoot regularly, to the point that acting and reacting is just muscle memory.
And you really need to shoot at “human” targets, not tin cans, so that involuntary “human second check” is completely overridden.
dimmsdale
What sort of armed confrontation is everyone contemplating having to face? I can see a bunch of mini-Waco/Malheur Wildlife Refuge sorts of things, where armed whackadoodles “occupy” a municipal or federal space and dare the cops to clear them out; I’m expecting Biden to have to crack that nut on the federal level pretty soon after he’s inaugurated, and there may well be some right-wingers who are “martyred” in the removal process, perhaps thereby spawning copycat occupations perhaps for the rest of Biden’s term. On a personal level, though? I live smack in the middle of NYC, so don’t have a realistic picture of life “out there” where Trumpers proliferate. Have a couple of guns, too, strictly for target use–the prospect of carrying (even if it were legal in NYC, which it isn’t) would involve much more training, on a regular basis, than I have the interest in, or time to do. But I also don’t feel as vulnerable as others who live elsewhere clearly do.
What sorts of situations are folks here anticipating?
ShadeTail
@Amir Khalid: Chances are, there will be some violence when (if) Trump loses, and some people will get killed. But it’s probably going to be a very small number. The vast majority of Trump supporters are soft fat white people well older than 50. They do own a fair number of guns, but they’re too comfortable to go tromping through the streets. They’ll talk tough, but it will be all talk.
So I think it’s quite reasonable to be scared of the potential for violence, but it’s not going to balloon into an actual war the way Trump and some of his cult like to say.
Medicine Man
Arm up but be responsible with them. Model the behavior you wish the gun-nuts displayed.
HumboldtBlue
I’m worried.
Hosted a small front lawn gathering for a friend and former colleague leaving for the Bay Area the other day.
Touched and hugged a fellow human being for the first time since March.
Jay
@Raven Onthill:
Lived rural for 20 years, relied on a Bokken for home safety from feral gangs of humans, with a shingle hatchet in my pants hammer loop for back up.
And that’s with lots of guns.
Inside a house, more useful than a pistol, revolver, shotgun or “black gun”.
Sab
@Jay: You do have those killer ungrateful deer. Some of us read and remember your comments.
Omnes Omnibus
Not interested in hunting? Okay. No real interest in target shooting? Okay. Do you really think that your neighbors are going to be coming to kill you? Do you think, really think, that you can pull the trigger and kill one of those neighbors?
Sab
@joel hanes: Good to know. Thanks.
Sab
@NoraLenderbee: I managed to pie myself, and I just got some pie, not the walrus chow. Sad.
Geoduck
@Origuy: Back in the day, Berke Breathed did an amusing Bloom County strip which features Magee’s poem.
HumboldtBlue
The need for distraction is strong.
I always liked the word and the work of the luthier.
Sab
@HumboldtBlue: My dad’s nurse’s aide just lost a cousin, after losing a nephew early covid. Couldn’t hug her. I feel like a monster, just by being safe.
cain
@TaMara (HFG):
No point in me getting one. I’m a terrible shot. I shoot better at least with the nerf gone or a rubber band if I just shoot off the cuff. Like all sports the more I do, the worse I get.
dimmsdale
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, that’s kind of the bottom line: if I were going to carry seriously, I’d have to think through EXACTLY under what sort of circumstance I’d pull the trigger on another human being (as well as asking myself ‘how likely IS this scenario?’). You’d also need (in addition to more training than you’d probably want to put in) a deep knowledge of the legal standards you’d have to meet to justify use of deadly force. These are not incidental or small considerations.
cain
@joel hanes:
I always thought you had to be dumb as a rock to walk around with an open carry. You’d be a target for sure because someone will just sneak up on you, with a knife or something and then take your gun and then disappear.
Jay
@Sab:
saw a BLab tonight, had a red LED collar, that when she, ( the dog) positioned her head just right, ( which she did), made it look like she had lasers for eyes,
Such a sweet, sweet “hound of the devil”.
2 Springs ago, chased off a Cinnamon Black Bear, garbage bear, off the front porch with a flashlight. The key was to chase him/her/they constantly for 5 km so they understood they were “prey”.
hard on a Spring bear, hard on a human body.
Sab
@Jay: Time to be walking in the woods on side trails in the metro park. And my husband won’t, because of your killer deer stories. Thanks a lot. //.
Sab
@Jay: So where Americans have racoons, you guys have actual bears? Yikes!
Jay
@cain:
with a modicum of training, most of the “black gun” open carry nutjobs could be killed and robbed of their weapon,
just using their gun sling and carry position against them.
No need for a weapon.
Omnes Omnibus
@dimmsdale: Before I joined the army many years ago, I sat down and had a number of long thinks on the subject. I own three long guns now, but I do not own them for self or home defense. I don’t keep ammo in the house so they wouldn’t be much use anyway.
I think that we are not going to have widespread violence that would warrant people getting strapped. I don’t pretend that this election will just resolve things, but I also do not think that we are going to need to burn the crops, poison the wells, and head for the hills either.
West of the Rockies
I wonder what social scientists will say about this time 10, 20 years from now. I mean the Salem With Trials were found to be related to some kind of mold on the rye supply.
Is it 30+ years of Rush Limbaugh’s daily rage-gasm (and countless imitators spewing their venom) that has the nation so crazy?
Anyway, 40% of the nation (including 65% of white guys over 50–my cohort, btw) are morons, science-denying, homophobic, misogynistic, self-hating Morlocks.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sab: My brother has seen bears on the streets in our central Wisconsin hometown. A city of about 40,000 not a tiny village. Bears are mostly harmless.
Chetan Murthy
@Omnes Omnibus: ISTR that New Jersey has quite an epidemic of black bears invading garbage cans.
Jay
@Sab:
SWIMBO once saw a cougar from the porch, rolling in the grass like a house cat.
50 years of “bushing”, even being hunted by cougars, never saw a cougar in the wild.
She also saw a wolf while sipping morning coffee. We never mentioned it to the neighbours. Wolf fear is still a big deal, even though they killed the last one in 1918.
Now in Vancouver, where instead we watch Family Feud.
Sab
@Omnes Omnibus: You are a lawyer. Your safety standards are odd.
Sab
@Jay: I don’t even go out when I let our cocker out at night. If coyotes want to eat a dog with such smelly ears… They won’t.
L85NJGT
Is the bad shoulder on the shooting side?
Sab
@Sab: Also too. After dark, we have coyotes everywhere, in Ohio!
Jay
@Sab:
urban coyotes will eat anything they can, even Cockers that need regular ear cleaning.
many many years ago, had them try to take out Sugar, ( my rottie, Blab, Shepard mix) by one mimicking the “hi, I’m a puppy, I want to play”, while the rest of the pack waited off trail in ambush.
Sugar was such a good dog and we were so bonded.
Sab
@Jay: You killed the last wolf in 1918. More important question is when did the last wolf kill one of y’all? I am guessing earlier than 1918?
dimmsdale
@Omnes Omnibus: Agreed (albeit with fingers crossed). A good portion of the gun fetish is emblematic rather than practical, I think. It’s my belief (and I could certainly be wrong) that the open-carry nitwits are mainly performative, relishing their own threat display and enjoying being intimidating. The impulse to buy a gun to counter that is understandable; it’s just a lot more complicated and nuanced the closer you get to actually doing it–it’s not for most people, I wouldn’t think, at that stage.
Sab
@Jay: Well in Canada, even the deer are killers.
Per your comment, I will be more careful with my smelly eared cocker.
CaseyL
@opiejeanne: Omigosh, that is so sweet! I am sending you an email.
Sab
@dimmsdale: From what I hear, hunting lately is nuts. Hope the Trumpsters kill each other off this coming deer hunt season.
JaySinWA
@Omnes Omnibus: We had a bear in our neighbor’s backyard years ago. Just north of Seattle. Bears happen from time to time. Racoons are more common, along with sloths. Deer occasionally walk down our street. Coyotes are pretty common.
Hungry Joe
I just can’t come up with a reasonably plausible scenario in which I will need to shoot someone. Even in slightly far-fetched scenarios the danger that comes with owning a gun outweighs any possible benefit of having one when I’ll supposedly be needing it.
A good question, for perspective: Looking back over your life, how many times have you been in situations where you’d been better off if you’d had a gun? Another question: How many times were you in situations where, looking back, you’re glad you DIDN’T have a gun?
Edmund Dantes
https://twitter.com/lukeisamazing/status/1308250055669878790?s=21
look how easy it is to make a million dollars with your startup guys? Two 19 year old college students just out there crushing it. Started from nothing and now thriving!!! /s
HumboldtBlue
Feinstein is going on 90 like my dad.
The GOP has a Federal Judiciary and we’ve got Di.
Sab
@JaySinWA: Sloths? In Seatle? I thought they were tropical in S and Central America only.
CaseyL
@JaySinWA: … sloths?
*I* live in Seattle, and while I will spot you everyone else on the list – plus possums – I would love to know where you saw a sloth in the wild in Seattle.
ETA: Sab, we posted at the same time – too funny!
JaySinWA
@Edmund Dantes: Holy moly, landsharks!
Sab
@Hungry Joe: My husband’s best friend is a just retired cop. In a midwestern city. He never fired his gun in the line of duty, for forty years. Not once.
JaySinWA
@Sab: Sorry, brain fart. Possums
@CaseyL: See above.
CaseyL
I will speak only to, and of, my own worst-case scenario fears: if things go badly pear-shaped (i.e., the Walking Pustule stays in office, along with the Traitorous Senate) he *will* goad his followers into attacking Democrats, and/or he may decide to start rounding us up. (Or Barr will; same thing.)
I’m also thinking of it being open season on anyone with dark skin, or a hijab, or other insignia of Otherness. Being able to shoot may not be just something done in self-defense. but also in defense of someone else.
HumboldtBlue
@Sab:
So what?
This is the same trope we’ve heard since grandad came back from the war.
He’s been part of an industry that for the past 100 years was predicated on beating the shit out of the poor and doing it with extra gusto and hate if they were othered and colored.
Why the fuck is the baseline for cops in this country “he didn’t pull out his firearm and shoot you so he’s a good cop”?
JaySinWA
@CaseyL: I’ll see you that and up the ante to police in tacit or explicit support in many areas, even with a T. defeat. But I don’t see my having a firearm in anyway helping the situation.
lurker
As a suburban dweller in a blue area, the idea of acquiring a gun anytime soon does not seem important, despite the current political situation.
However, I have a different consideration likely to come up at an indeterminate time in the future. An older relative has a couple of rifles and/or shotguns (maybe one of each at a guess, but memory is not what it was). Nothing noteworthy, but they are well maintained, and probably have not been fired in 30+ years. When that person passes on, the only logical relative they would go to would be me. I have a couple of kids at home. One has experience with a bb gun and slingshot through scouts. Otherwise, our household has been gun-free since it became a household (back in the dark ages).
So, the interesting potential quandary is what to do with those two rifles (or shotguns) when the time comes. I suspect they will go to me, and thence to a dealer, but there is likely to be some strong objections to them even coming in the front door…
Anyway, probably wise to hold off on purchasing a firearm for the moment. Especially any artillery heavy enough to avoid the step-on-a-rake problem, as a cannon or a mortar would just look obnoxious in the yard. ; –
ETA: As a kid, I did a little attempted hunting with my relatives. Some of it was for deer or fowl. Also there was a time on a family (relative’s) farm where there were some gophers in one of the fields and we were set up to target them. That last bit was more than a little odd.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s not what Dr. Stephen Colbert DFA told me.
Chetan Murthy
@HumboldtBlue: Maybe a substantively equivalent but facially nicer way to put it would be:
Unless the city in which this guy was a cop is singularly different from other American cities, this guy was either a witness to or had knowledge of witnesses to flagrant violations of laws: assaults and perhaps murders of Americans who were doing nothing other than angering cops. Again, unless this guy’s city was singularly different from other American cities, the fact the he made it 40 years is almost prima facie evidence that he violated the oath he took to uphold the law. Because those violators of the law, also took such an oath, which makes their crimes all the more egregious.
Again, unless the city in which he worked was singularly different from most American cities, simply making it 40 years in the job, is almost incontrovertible proof that he’s a bad cop. Because a cop who doesn’t do his utmost to root out crime amongst his police force …. that’s a bad cop.
lurker
@Sab:
@HumboldtBlue:
@Chetan Murthy:
To some degree, all of you are making points that suggest a similar idea – namely that using a gun need not be necessary in a situation. That can be true for situations where one has the gun present and does not need to use it to calm a situation down (as a uniformed officer or simply someone with a gun); or as someone who does not need to use it to inflict pain or physical punishment (again whether in uniform or not).
Presence of the gun can make a difference, even if it is only ever used at a target range.
Sab
@HumboldtBlue: Things have changed a lot. Not in urban life. But in cop training. They think stuff is scarier than it is. The only thing worse is all the guns out there. That is real. But young cops are voting for more guns, so I do not feel sorry for them about their working environment. They chose it. I do feel sorry for urban residents. Too many guns, plus their cops now are more nuts than their fathers cops were.
leeleeFL
@JCJ: Ronnie Raygun wanted to use the Challenger Launch in his SOTU. I never forgave him. I watched McAuliffe’s Parents get the news in real time. Hated him for that.
Sab
@HumboldtBlue: Also too. My dad’s nurse’s aide lives in a neighborhood that used to be normal, and now is nuts every night. Everyone is sleeping under the bed every night because they are afraid if stray gunshots. These are real people living like this in midwest Americal
HumboldtBlue
@Chetan Murthy:
It’s because policing in this country has its direct and most fruitful roots to white supremacy and slave-catchers.
I’ve listened to a dozen police chiefs wax poetical about “Peelian principles” and “community service” when in reality the greatest focus of policing resources are focused on oppression tactics and crime stats.
That means the poor and marginalized unable to access or even to simply understand the system that’s claimed to be designed to help them are at a deadly risk.
Jay
@Sab:
as far as I have been able to research, wolves have killed 7 people in North America since 1772.
30 years ago, I saw a pack in the Chehalis, ( where there hadn’t been a wolf sighting, in 50 years).
I went to the First Nations Chehalis Band Office, to report it.
the response was “we don’t talk about that”
I was like, “okay,…. cool,… no wolves in the Chehalis,…. got it”.
Chetan Murthy
@HumboldtBlue: We agree completely, and on another night, I might be the one getting a little het up under the collar about it. I’m just noting that it’s possible to express these points in a more neutral manner, is all. I completely feel your anger, though. I’m brown, and there’s no way I can view any interaction with the po-po, except thru the lens where I see my dead body next to the police car.
egorelick
Almost all gun shops and hunting outfitters I know about are right wing a-holes. I don’t know whether that is because they are catering to their clients or that’s what they believe. If someone wants a gun, is there a liberal alternative supplier (haven’t kept up on rules as to interstate sale)?If not, should one be started or more likely purchased from an existing supplier (a-hole would still be happy with the money).
HumboldtBlue
@Sab: @Chetan Murthy:
I got youse both.
Got yer back too.
Sab
I think cops have gone nuts and their training has gone nuts. Their insane unions have too much input in their training. Why the fuck can the FOP have input in their training.
For a generation we have traded off paying them more with controlling them. We can’t pay them more, so we let their appalling union loose in our civic life. Locking up and actually killing our citizens, because we don’t want to pay the cops more in order to control them.
Chetan Murthy
@Sab:
I’m sorry, but this is letting off cops too easy. For much longer than a generation, people of color have been complaining about police brutality: it goes back many, many decades. It’s just that, until the advent of smartphones it was almost impossible to produce the sort of incontrovertible evidence we have today.
I remember growing up in Weatherford, TX (70s), the joke was that every few years the Fort Worth po-po would shoot a Mexican and drop his body in the Brazos. To put the fear of god in the rest. I shit you not, we joked about it in *high school*.
In Houston in college (mid-80s) we used to joke about “throw-down guns”.
Yes, it’s bad today too. But for people of color, it’s been bad for a long, long, long time.
egorelick
And noone has mentioned the 3rd rail of gun safety, booze and suicide – over 20,000 every year (from firearms but many had booze involved too). That risk stays even if the gang of marauders doesn’t materialize.
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: I had a grad school classmate (late 80s) who spent time at UPenn. He lived in “center city”, and as he explained it, there were a few streets where white people lived, and the po-po would make sure that no crime happened there. But right next to those, were streets where black people lived, the police basically didn’t do anything to prevent crime there. So one day my friend is walking with his son on one of these streets in the white area, and they come across a guy who’s been shot, and is bleeding-out. He’d walked/crawled from where he’d been shot. As my friend put it, if a perp had tried to commit those sorts of crimes “on Rittenhouse Square” (I think he said), there’d have been a hundred cops on him in a flash, and he’d be so riddled with bullet-holes you could see daylight thru him.
Sab
Humboldt Blue: I don’t think we are on different sides. What do you think?
Sab
@Chetan Murthy: Cops are actually doing a job which is nasty. I have talked to cops about stuff they have seen and it is horrific. Tortured babies etc. I refuse to say that they have not seen that stuff.
On the other hand I will not say that they are not racist beyond belief.
They live in both worlds. We need to know that.
Chetan Murthy
@Sab: I don’t think most cops are racist beyond belief. But that’s not necessary for the perpetuation of this incredibly racist system. All that is necessary (to borrow a phrase), is that good men do nothing. And in this case, good men (and women) who are *sworn* to do something. *Sworn*.
This is part of what is meant by “the banality of evil”, after all. I don’t need to shoot that black kid with the bb-gun. All I need to do, is support my union president, and when he calls for a sick-out, I participate, and then the po-po who did the deed gets his badge and gun back, and all is well. I can still have black friends, and a clear conscience. I’ve probably never drawn my gun on duty. None of that stuff is necessary, in order to support the system of racist injustice.
Chetan Murthy
@Sab:
Loggers, fishermen, and roofers are not given licenses to kill. Nor to assault and grievously harm otherwise innocent civilians. And yet their jobs are more dangerous than being a po-po. If these policemen cannot do their jobs without brutalizing and murdering, they should find other work. If they cannot do their jobs without overlooking crimes committed by their co-workers, again, they should find other work.
It is the soft bigotry of low expectations, to argue that because they do a hard job, that they should be allowed to commit murder, to assault. Or that because it’s their co-workers committing these crimes, that those crimes need not be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
opiejeanne
@Sab: We have both here, plus a puma, and we’re just a few mlles outside Seattle, I mean maybe 12 miles from downtown Seattle (if I were a bird) and 2 miles from the downtown of Woodinville by car. We don’t see them often, but they are here as well as the deer. The puma/mountain lion/cougar animal was sighted a quarter mile down my street about 10 days ago and then again the next day. You’d think we live in the forest, but we don’t.
Sister Golden Bear
I loath guns—although I recognize their use as tools in appropriate situations—and I leave in a suburban blue area, so I probably won’t actually do it. But, as an out and proud, queer, visibly trans, woman, I’ll admit I’ve also pondered getting a shotgun for home defense.
Because even in the Bay Area, there’s still enough belligerent right-wingers who wouldn’t mind using me for target practice if they thought Dear Leader and the cops would condone it. And yes, I have thought a lot about whether I could shoot another human being, and decided that yes I could. One in a long list of how I hate how the last four years have changed me.
AJ
@VeniceRiley: most grounding and inspiring response I’ve read so far
And yes, what a terrifying moment you told. Glad all came out ok
pablo
You can’t count on the police protecting you, they’re with Trump. Most military generals will back the Constitution, and thanks to Woodward’s book the majority of solders, sailors and airmen know of his disrespect. Many will die. Get the guns.
satby
This entire thread is off the rails.
MagdaInBlack
I think we all been stewing in our own juice too long. You do not need a gun.
Betty Cracker
We talked about getting a rifle when we moved to the swamp because there’s always the possibility of having to deal with alligators, bears, water moccasins and wild boars. Decided against it because we hate guns and don’t want to help enrich the death merchants who manufacture and sell them.
We have a couple of BB guns to non-lethally drive off undesirable beasties. I’ve also found that recreating the Lion’s Roar from Kung Fu Hustle will scare off a gator.
The Trump cult is numerous in our area, but I don’t expect them to go marauding no matter what happens in the election. If any disgruntled Trumpsters tried to fuck with me, they’d get a face-full of wasp spray and a nine-iron to the noggin, then be thrown to the gators.
Chris T.
Weirdly, I had a recent dream in which I had a gun.
Even more weirdly, I had bought this gun in New Zealand. ?!?
raven
Wow, and I get pilloried for suggesting a magazine with “Gun” in the title isn’t all that bad!
rikyrah
Being former military, I thought that you would already have a gun of some sort.
I think that you will do what’s best.
But, these MAGA folks better realize.
Nobody is playing with them.
rikyrah
@satby:
How off the rails ???
rikyrah
@cs:
I disagree about it being in the cities.
I think that true folks in the cities have been restrained in dealing with these MAGA folks.
They think that someone is playing with them ??
zhena gogolia
@cokane:
Thank you.
Searcher
I had these thoughts.
You know what I ended up buying instead?
Round trip train tickets to DC on Jan 20 so I can watch Biden get sworn in.
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
??????????
matt
On the gun thing, I went through the same thought process and bought a couple, first I ever owned in my life, a couple of weeks ago.
Chris Johnson
@joel hanes: This. Don’t TALK about it. I’ve been having similar thoughts (assault weapons and handguns would NOT be my jam, I would be a better sniper: that’s the only time you’ll hear that from me)
The thing is, this is not an END goal. Look at what it’s done to the wingnuts. I also have serious reservations and here’s the most significant one: everything else we do makes the guns stop being necessary (and if they ain’t necessary, why have any?). The gun thing is a bulwark against the complete collapse of the very civilization we work so hard to build.
And WE ain’t collapsing it.
Don’t talk about gun-getting, and always remember the end goal is getting rid of the need to have such things. It took decades of work and fuckin’ Russia getting involved to wear us down to where we have this little civilization, and part of it is that black people have always been subjugated to where they by all rights really needed guns themselves, and nothing was done about their conditions. And that was an ongoing choice.
Unless we propose to keep a class of people (ANY class) in slavery and misery against their will forever, we don’t need guns in our society. Now look at the Trump people, the Russians, the oligarchs. Sure, right now we could use armament. Don’t be fooled that it’s normal. It’s wartime.
Chris Johnson
@cokane: This is also kind of true.
MAGAs don’t take to the streets, except when they do, as of late, and drive caravans of trucks into the city to inflame a reaction. They don’t take to the streets except when they get a gun from Mom and go into a protest zone and kill people.
The odds of needing to be trained and use a gun in combat (not ‘anger’!) against MAGAs is very small.
It’s larger if the MAGAs are goaded into hysteria, which is happening, and growing in numbers (not happening on the large scale but more of the previously normal Republicans are going full MAGA), and if they think their duty is to take THEIR guns into ‘anarchy zones’ (helpfully defined by Barr, just recently) and gun down subhuman ‘looters’ without consequence to themselves.
Every lone terrorist MAGA who is killed in the area of a protest after, or while, killing a bunch of innocent people, is ten other MAGAs who are not going to do that. And the cops are going to work doubly hard to make them safe while they come into protest areas and murder innocent people, so that’s not a solution.
MAGAs don’t take to the streets except when they do. And they don’t take to the streets when there’s too much of a threat that they WILL be killed rather than kill. They only take assault weapons and mow down masses of innocents when they are very sure the innocents can’t hurt them, for instance when they’re murdering literal children.
dimmsdale
@matt: If you bought them for self-defense, may I humbly suggest a book by Massad Ayoob, “In The Gravest Extreme.” It may be somewhat dated in terms of evolution of firearms laws and there may be better books that I’m just unfamiliar with, but it is VERY clear about practical (including physiological) and legal aspects of using a gun in extreme circumstances. IMO no defensive gun owner should be allowed to load their weapon until they’ve read it.
Chris Johnson
@Omnes Omnibus: We’re seeing what I figure is the ONLY situation where this talk makes sense. If that gets fixed, the talk immediately stops making sense again.
It’s not your neighbors to watch: it’s having your home declared an ‘anarchy jurisdiction’ (which is literally happening thanks to Barr in key places) and then having MAGAs in trucks bristling with assault weapons come from THEIR neighborhoods into YOUR neighborhood because they get to hunt people now, except they call them ‘looters’ or possibly ‘terrorists’ or ‘anarchists’ or ‘antifa’.
This is an unusual situation.
It’s continuing to develop. Cole’s instincts here aren’t wrong, though I do wonder whether Cole’s neighborhood is at risk. Mine isn’t. The question is, are you morally bound to hit the road yourself and serve as defense to protesters being directly attacked in this way? I feel like things would have to continue escalating (as they are) for a while more, to really legitimize that. Otherwise, you’re the asshole bringing guns into a community, you’re just claiming to wear a different jersey.
We’re not constantly hearing about more violence out of Portland (one ‘anarchist jurisdiction’) and I feel like if there was anything happening to that effect we would be getting screaming headlines about it. I’m not at all sure things have escalated that far yet.
marduk
How was Wasteland 3? I’ve been holding off because WL2 was initially released in such a poor state.
kindness
John don’t buy a gun to defend yourself against the Republican Hoardes. That’s a terrible reason. I used to target shoot. Still like the idea, I just don’t do it so much any more. So I’m ambivalent about guns. I don’t own them for self protection or defense. I don’t hunt. But I still own some. Locked up in a safe where they should be.
coin operated
Late to the game here, but FWIW…
If you purchase a weapon, even for home defense, and do not practice with it at least weekly you WILL NOT be prepared to use it when the time comes. We always hear ‘fight or flight’ when the adrenaline kicks in, but they left out one of the more common reactions to a life-threatening situation…freeze. What’s that old adage…frozen in one’s tracks? Unless you’ve trained to overcome that reaction, a weapon is of no use to you.
The Pale Scot
My collection is mostly antiques, a Garand, a Lee-Enfield, I would like a Mosin–Nagant, sears shotgun. Figure since I’m not going on patrol weight’s not a factor, so I never considered anything modern. With all the body armor the ammosexuals wear (when did that start? I remember when that stuff was illegal) the 30-06 round would be more useful, just the boom those things make will have them hitting the deck. The 30-06 will ruin a modern car engine compartment from a long way off. The bitch is my eyesight aint’ what it use to be.
We’re looking for grandpappy’s papers, he was born in Tyrone county, what was once a wistful desire is becoming a we gotta do this, fuck!
John Cole
@marduk: It’s excellent!
nclurker
i bailed out of the city twenty five years ago to the mountains of nw n.c.
(best thing i ever did)
had a mother bear and her two cubs on my deck a month ago.
coyotes every where at night.when i walk the dog i carry a can of bear spray,which seems as it might be
a good thing to have as an alternative to firearms.
also have a couple of shotguns,unloaded,but handy for the rare sick racoon or possum
stumbling about in broad daylight.
buck shot also handy.
can’t say i’m not glad to have them.
cheers all
Haroldo
Very late, but I’d like to get this on record.
Pastor Rick Joymer: “God wants Christian militias…”
https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/09/16/pastor-rick-joyner-god-wants-christian-veterans-to-lead-good-militias/?fbclid=IwAR1DjTp6bSxChPTob8acVcsZJ8UmtijR53Od8eT8KBXZM1ZGhufJLnmgTCo
A Ghost to Most
At least you’re finally having the conversation now.
“Buckle up, folks. This sh.. stuff is real.”
– Michael Steele
Searcher
@JoyceH: I got a slingshot from Harbor Freight for like $4. I’ve always wanted to learn to use an actual sling. I figure for my actual wildlife threat model it should be plenty to chase off or kill either small possibly-rabid animals or large animals in my yard. For the “I stumble across a bear in the woods” scenarios, well, it’s not like I’m going to be trooping around my woods loaded for bear even if I had a gun.
It’s always important to keep in mind realistic threat models when trying to find solutions to mitigate the threats. Realistically speaking, having a firearm does not mitigate most threats posed by other people having firearms. You can construct a few situations where it helps, where you could imagine brandishing a firearm and making someone back down, but fundamentally a firearm is a weapon and not a shield.
You cannot “defend” yourself with a firearm just by having it, it does not make you bullet proof. It just lets you shoot other people, sometimes lots of other people, and that only prevents you from getting shot if you are willing to aggressively shoot other people before they have a chance to threaten you just in case they were thinking of doing so.
Committing to a “people might shoot me and I need to be ready to shoot back” threat model therefore requires a lot of work. You need to be committed to always having your firearm with you and ready to be used; you can’t know if you will need to defend yourself while sleeping or while getting groceries or checking the mail or taking a dump. You need to be constantly vigilant; you can’t just open your door to take out your trash, you first need to determine whether anyone is out there waiting to shoot you. You need to be suspicious of everyone; anyone passing you on the street could take out a gun and shoot you, so you need to be ready to do the same first if they make any suspicious moves, like getting ready to defend themselves from you.
I’m not willing to commit to living like that, so realistically, owning a gun would just mean that I would have a chance of myself or others accidentally being shot with it, either in a simple mishap or when someone wakes up groggy and thinks there is an intruder, and that if someone did go door to door rounding up liberals, I would die confused why someone was pounding on my door at 3am with a gun locked in my safe rather than just confused.
I do not see that as an improvement.
raven
@The Pale Scot: Watch that thumb!
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@cs:
Please flee to a purple area with your fellow refugees so it turns blue, making the feral Trumpers uncomfortable enough to flee to a red area.
paul w, chicago
i’m a 74 year old viet nam veteran that hadn’t touched a firearm since mustering out in 1966. i saw this coming a year ago and i now own an ar15 and a shotgun. i’m hoping i can sell them both by inauguration time, but until then, they’re there. you should too
No One You Know
@dimmsdaleThe ones in Portland: armed MAGATS stopping cars to see if America are driving them for letting wildfire zones. For example.
Frank
@mario: Life-long Jersey resident too clumsy to own a gun. I’m hoping my white privilege and the Honorable Discharge I’m taping to my front door will protect me long enough for Canada to let me in. I’m old and retired, so I won’t be taking anyone’s job.