Gun Control

Let's not forget the infamous California case where vital public healthcare workers, looking after invalids and the elderly within their homes, were actually being paid less than zoo employees.

It was the shocking basis for an ultimately successful union organizing campaign.

Getting back to guns...

Rosie O'Donnell, who's a gun-restraint advocate, has been accused of being a hypocrite because she employs an armed bodyguard.

Why, NRA minions ask, is it wrong for them to carry handguns for protection when Rosie's protector does the same?

First, it isn't wrong.

People ought to be able to carry registered/licensed firearms when definite, known threats arise, as has happened in Rosie's instance.

She's a homosexual, a feminist, and thinks Sarah Brady isn't Satan.

Which means she's hated, and a target.

Rosie's got enemies. Nasty ones.

For everyone to arm, however, from an essentially paranoid and prejudial perspective, leading to the Afghanistanization of America, is an entirely different matter.

Defacto warlordism isn't wanted here. (Just as it isn't really wanted there: I predict Afghanistan will eventually explode in utter chaos.)

Second, it's the dude's job.

Your job, or mine, might be telemarketer or waitress...or whatever.

Not professions where guns are required, or desired.

So lay off Rosie.

She's just reacting to the ugly, ominous side of rightwing extremism in an appropriate way.

I notice you didn't answer the question, Muskwa.

People ought to be able to carry registered/licensed firearms when definite, known threats arise, as has happened in Rosie's instance.

What known threat has happened to Rosie?

For everyone to arm, however, from an essentially paranoid and prejudial perspective, leading to the Afghanistanization of America, is an entirely different matter.

Isn't that exactly what Rosie is doing, arming herself "from an essentially paranoid and prejudial perspective".

I just tossed out the Rosie post because I felt gun-totin' macho men
needed another woman to beat up on.

A million and one not being enough (The "Moms" and Sarah Brady).

Why can't I carry my Glock?

I'm also sure they're answer will include promoting more gun laws.

Sorry Dennis,

it has nothing to do with Rosie being a feminist, lesbian or an actor. It makes it too easy for you to claim that macho gun totin males want to somehow beat up a female. Talk about demagouging and rash generalizations, whew. She's an anti gun spokesperson so of course it would make her vulnerable to criticizm by her opponents. I'm sure you never criticize political foes right? (yea, sure) It's just more proof of what most rational thinking people already know, that her hypocrisy and double talk are nothing new from the elitist left. Do as I say and not as I do. Who are you to say that she needs protection anymore than a woman or an elderly man who live in perhaps a high crime area or work late at night say in a convienence store. I would say someone working alone late night down at Amoco in a crime ridden area is at alot more risk than Rosie. They can't afford bodyguards and yet she feels the need for one who is also armed and then comes out and tells others they shouldn't have the same right or level of protection because she is somehow more important or more threatened than they woman working a 2:00 a.m shift down at the mini mart in bad area U.S.A. It would be one thing if she had just a bodyguard who wasn't armed but she would deny that same right to someone else when she lives in a gated house with armed protection. Whether it be her or Jesse Jackson Jr. speaking against vouchers even though he went to a private school himself it's more proof of the elitist left massive hypocrisy and is laughable and makes their words as shallow as their actions.

Let me tell a little story about a private company security guard who came to the gun club I belong to while I was on "Range Safety Officer" duty. He had the uniform with his badge. He had the aviator sunglasses. He had shooting gloves on. He was shooting a Ruger 9mm semiautomatic handgun. He had the short cropped crew cut. He had the walkie talkie with the microphone hooked to his epilet. He looked as professional as a real LEO.

Then he started shooting. Oh my Creator! He was using a right hand stance, but shooting with his left eye. He was shooting off 4 or 5 round bursts as fast as he could pull the trigger. He wasn't hitting any paper at 25 yds. I asked him why he was shooting with his left eye while in a right hand stance. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "That's how I've always done it". I suggested he either change his stance or change to the other eye. I asked if he knew which eye was his master. He said, "No, how do you tell?". I showed him and his right eye was the master. He switched to that eye, but complained that it didn't feel comfortable to close his left. He didn't shoot any better either, and kept rattling off shots in quick succession. I coached him on slowing down and controlling his breathing. This helped a little, but not much. He had a long way to go. I would hate to put my safety in his hands, but he was "trusted" to carry a handgun in public, while I am not. In my area, you will not get a CCW unless you have a job that requires you carry a lot of money or valuable merchandize around on you.

I hope you all feel safer now.

You guys just don't understand. Rosie's body guard was a "professional" body guard. He had been trained. The rest of us, lacking this "professional" training, cannot be trusted with carrying of firearms. This has nothing to do with elitism, leftist superiority, or celebrity status. Come on. Get with it

If I've logged over 1000 hours of Duck Hunt on my Nintendo and won various awards for my Duck Hunt expertise, can I carry a gun and be licensed as a professional? Ares, can I be your bodyguard during the medallion hunt? If you find it, your life may be in danger.

Do snowball fights count? Or what about working at a child care, little kids chasing after you, ready to pounce on you and take you down like a lion chasing down the zebra on the Serengeti. Or if they are throwing Matchbox cars, legos, or whatever toy they may find?

Darn. I guess not. Okay, you can be my bodyguard. I'll need you for foes like the Creeper, the werewolf, and Redbeard's ghost. Think you can handle that?

If you'd be my bodyguard, I could be your long lost pal, I can call you Betty and Betty when you call me you can call me Al,,,,Nah,Nah,Naha...Oops sorry wrong thread.

Ares, the first part of my post was sarcasm, in case you didn't note the "sarcasm off" at the end of that first paragraph. To be in the elite crowd, you have to be surrounded by "professionals". My point is that the elites don't believe that us peons are "professional" enough to be trusted with carrying our own firearms. That is why I followed this up with an example of "professionalism in security" as I witnessed it. And don't get me wrong. Most private security folks may be very good at what they do. But as with any other profession, there are some real klinkers out there. Just relying on the fact that some one is a "professional" is not good enough when it comes to protecting your own life. Many so called elites do not understand this concept. That is why they at times look to professional actors to champion political causes which those actors may have very little factual knowledge about. For these actors, if it feels good, act it out.

Ares, the first part of my post was sarcasm, in case you didn't note the "sarcasm off" at the end of that first paragraph

I have a confession to make.

I posted the Rosie provocation just to see if the Gunbo's
here were asleep, or dead, maybe having shot themselves
while kissing their...barrels.

Now, give me an answer on this:

A Christian, a Muslim, a Hindu and a Jew all come to your door, jointly.

"Uh...yes, how may I help you?"

"We're collecting handguns to be melted down into Peace Bells to be
installed and rung in churches, mosques, synagogues and temples all over the world -- to further the spirit of Universal Brotherhood.
Would you care to give us your gun?"

Yes?

No?

Why?

How could you be sure such a Holy Quartet wasn't sent directly by God to test you?

I'm an atheist. God has learnt not to test me.

Would you care to give us your gun?"

To be honest, you gunners have been winning me to your position, with all your fine logic.

I'm beginning to appreciate the cold, blue-steeled truth.

I WOULD like to see feminists armed with AK-47s, just like that fierce Viet Cong female soldier in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. (Damn, she made me hot!)

Try to take away their reproductive rights, and they could just shoot their tormentors right through the Bible, and out of the picture.

And we could empty our armories, giving all that weaponry to inner-city blacks, along with roadmaps to the plush suburbs, instructing them to arrange for their own slavery reparations at gunpoint and poolside...while the butler and maids defected to the Hip Hop Nation.

Best of all, workers could show up at the plant with their deer rifles, duct-tape all managerial bootlickers to the ceiling, and see just how much better off they'd collectively be with the fruit of THEIR labor going into THEIR pockets, instead of paying for the Boss's expensive "tastes" and vices.

Yes, sir.

Those Paris Communards had guns, back in 1871.

And what a fun ruckus they raised!

Yes, gum ownership is inspiring.

(Pop!)

And, yes, she died.

And we could empty our armories, giving all that weaponry to inner-city blacks, along with roadmaps to the plush suburbs, instructing them to arrange for their own slavery reparations at gunpoint and poolside

Gee Dennis, it looks like you are under the assumption that if we just give inner city blacks some firearms, they would be predisposed to committing crimes against white people in the posh suburbs. Shame. Shame. Shame on you. What a racist attitude you secretly carry around with you. No wonder you are prone to post such nonsensical diatribes. You are carrying a heavy load my friend. The large majority of blacks in the inner city are just as damn law abiding as white folks in the suburbs, my friend. The reason crime rates tend to be higher is because of the drug dealers and gangs (usually one and the same), who are but a small minority. These people have chosen to earn a living the easy, illegal way. They make the inner city a hell hole for all of the people living there. But we are to excuse these punks, because the US has stacked the deck against them, according to folks like you.

Accept black people as your equals, and you will feel a lot better. We should not judge people by the color of their skin, but by the depth of their character.

Ares, in response to your question about Britain:

Regardless of who has or doesn't have guns, "crime" will grow under the harsh conditions of worsening economic injustice and resulting income disparity.

Witness Britain, and the U.S. under blatant, reactionary-led favortism for the already rich.

We really need to redefine the word "criminal".

For instance, in the event of a truly devastating depression, should the jobless masses be judged criminals if their desperate circumstances -- in a nation where our social safety net has been dismantled by the Right, to free up money for its own special interests -- forced them to consequently pillage shopping malls, or supermarkets, to survive?

Would conservative gun owners shoot them?

Would federal troops?

Or would they defect to the people's side?

ABOVE THE LAW, AND UNDER A CLOUD

Thanks to our cultural consciousness being pervaded
by rightwing notions and biases, it's almost an instinctive tendency for us to think of "crime" in street-mugger terms, or as the stereotypical, drug-related activity of warring urban gangs.

Seldom do we associate crime, now, with the organized lawlessness of the Mafia, as would have been our first impulse not that long ago.

While this perceptual shift at least partially reflects objective changes in where and when criminality occurs in today's America, it has to be seen as primarily the result of far too many of us buying into reactionary propaganda carefully contrived to inculcate within
the majority populace a demonized vision of the poor -- particularly impoverished racial minorities.

Nowhere is the usefulness of that misrepresentation to the Right more evident than with respect to gun control.

While rational souls with commonsense notivation see a clear logic and necessity in
gaining greater, prudent strictures on the all-too-ready access to hand guns that exists in
this country, the NRA and other similar groups are able to effectively parlay deliberately generated fears about the alleged criminal character of the supposedly typical ghetto dweller...into a tawdry dichotomization which divides us into two, distinct camps.

There are, on the one hand, the purportedly good, honest, decent denizens of white, middle-class America, confronted, on the other, by a growing scourge involving armed "criminals" invariably presented as low-income and of color. It's us vs. them, in the starkest terms, and in a depiction that best fits the longstanding conservative tactic of divisively pitting us one against the other...while a special-interest hierarchy that exploits everyone laughs all the way to the bank.

Thus, we're smokescreened from recognizing the much greater and far more serious lawlessness -- namely the crime in the suites that's become endemic to our system, and which has grown so blatant (in connection with Enron, Arthur Andersen, WorldCom, etc.) that usual, obfuscatory means have proven inadequate in keeping it completely hidden.

But lawlessness at the top goes far beyond Big Business and High Finance malfeasance.

Above the Law, Under a Cloud, conclusion...

Consider the current controversy over the World Court's entirely proper, reasoned insistence on having all nations' military conduct held accountable to international law.

The Bush administration, which is currently engaged in such illegalities as bombing Iraq on a regular, sustained basis, has expressed -- under the War on Terrorism pretext -- plans to put U.S. troops or advisors into what could amount to as many as sixty nations.

As the recent, atrocious, wedding bombing "accident" in Afghanistan shows, U.S. forces are insufficiently attuned to avoidance of inflicting lethal damage on civilian targets, a
problem that would unquestionably expand as our interventions spread.

Bush is seeking, therefore, a prior exclusion from global, legal culpability for the
war-crimes violations he knows are certain to come, as the U.S. plays bully/cowboy
in behalf of multinational corporate interests on an escalating worldwide scale.

On this score -- and certainly with regard to new demands that the Securities and Exchange Commission look, again, into apparent improprities which took place a dozen years ago as Bush seemingly finagled his Harken oil interests into maximum gain -- the powers that be
would certainly prefer us to focus on a manipulated "threat" emanating from the nearest
bad neighborhood.

"Watch out for the druggie thugs! Don't look over in our direction!"

Falling for this ploy, however, would entail remaining popularly oblivious to what -- if exposed fully to its maximum depths -- could amount to a revelation of corruption and depravity so extensive at the top levels of our society and economy that complete systemic inviability might be disclosed.

Just how crooked is contemporary American capitalism?

That's a question which must be answered to everyone's complete satisfaction, so that we can respond with whatever reforms are required to set things right.

Provided things haven't become so rotten that reform itself is impossible, making a truly revolutionary socio-politico-economic change the only workable solution.

Most states do NOT have CCW laws and they are defeated regularily when they come up, which is often.

Excuse me, but I believe that at least 33, and it may be 34 states now have "shall issue" CCW, while some of the remaining 16 states have "may issue" CCW as does Minnesota. Could you please explain your above statement, Bill? I don't know where you received the data for this statement, but I am interested in how you came to this conclusion.

Consider the current controversy over the World Court's entirely proper, reasoned insistence on having all nations' military conduct held accountable to international law.

Who is going to hold the International World Court accountable?

The state House yesterday overwhelmingly approved a bill that would weaken
                      landmark gun control laws passed in 1998, voting for legislation that would
                  allow convicted felons to legally obtain and carry a gun in Massachusetts.

Mass. bill would let felons buy, carry arms

I found this interesting.

SHORT SHOTS

Call me plumb loco, but I think humanity shouldn't ASPIRE to arm itself, to get into gunfights with itself, to protect itself, from itself.

---

Just another day in Nuttyville...

Two NRA members are talking over the backyard fence:

"Well, John, I've gotta run. I have to fill some more sand bags for my recreation room machine gun nest."

"I hear you, Wayne. My bushel basket of granades needs toppin' off. Ya never know when the Red Chinese will arrive."

---

I always thought we were instructed to be our brother's keeper.

Not his bullet-hole perforator.

so your use of that article to make your point is grasping at straws, quite frankly.

Bill, I was not trying to make a point. I posted it because, like I said, I found it interesting.