Y'know, I've thought a lot about that great poem, and believe it also applies to Climate Change issues. I live in the Rocky Mountains... we have had fires and then floods, but nothing like those closer to each of our coastlines.
It has occurred to me that by the time Climate Change decides to obliterate our area, no one will be able to help us... Between Putin and mother nature, we are all in very deep trouble.
Jews didn’t become “white adjacent” until recently, and there will never be acceptance. White supremacy is about Jews. That’s why the Nazis at Charlottesville screamed “Jews will not replace us.”
Most neo-Nazis would like to round up blacks and remove them to the African continent.
They want to exterminate Jews. There’s that word again.
They were overtly denied jobs. Hard to stop them for driving as being Jewish is not as easy to identify from across. Denied housing. Beat up and bullied. Told they were going to burn in hell. Heard jew used as a verb to mean cheap or stingy. Poked in the back with a ruler by the boy who sat behind me in 6th grade and called dirty jew. All these things happened to family members or me. And I can assure you such stories are not unique.
How many American Jews were enslaved or lynched here? Why were American Jews allowed to become white adjacent whereas Black and Native Americans were not?
Again, you need to review the history of Judaism in America. We’ve been lynched and mass-murdered. Antisemitism is alive and well in America.
We have no homeland. Jews have been thrown out of every country we’ve settled in; that’s why so many Jews cling so desperately to Israel (which presently could screw up a two-car funeral).
No one is denying that slavery is the great national stain. My only point is that the neo-Nazi movement creates terror in the hearts of many of us, and the MAGA movement is neo-Nazi.
You really want to compare the number of mass murdered or lynched Jewish people in the US to Black or Native people? That suggests you don't know the history if this country.
Jewish people chose to come here. They weren't brought in shackles and then subjected to physical, emotional, and spiritual torture as well as cultural erasure. They weren't invaded and ethnically cleansed. The MAGA movement us as American as Apple pie and fundamentally white supremacist.
Imagine being told you're subhuman monsters who were better off as slaves or that your culture and society was "primitive" and your people deserved to be exterminated in public school this century. Also, imagine if your country's currency primarily had people on it who committed atrocities against your people.
Oh yeah, how on earth did I forget that? I actually attended a Lutheran church service about 8 years ago (my husband and I were visiting his very devout aunt and uncle and I offered to go with them to be polite- my husband did not want to go but I convinced him to honor them and his own long rejected upbringing.) The pastor's sermon was bizarre. All about conspiracy theory and pretty much about how the Jews conspired to kill Jesus- he never came out and said that but the implications were clear. Horrific. Our aunt and uncle did not get it.
Jews were denied housing, jobs and university admissions because of their Judaism, but as I said, we’ve become white adjacent since the end of the Red Scare.
I’d suggest you read up on the National Front. Or 8Chan. Neo-Nazis are not talking about blacks.
I call this the Oppression Olympics. Whose people have suffered the most? I imagine that we can agree that it hasn’t been white Christian males, so let’s shake on that and part friends.
They also slaughtered a massive group of innocent people. We have our faults but we don’t massacre people.
I’m seeing a lot of “in America” qualifiers on assertions about Jews here, as though Germany were on Mars, instead of right over thataway, and the place that these nuts still consider their Fatherland.
The way I read the thread, Jews weren't the only ones the alt-right is willing to eliminate. From that perspective, My Lai, while not state sanctioned, is an example of a massacre at the hands of American citizens. William Calley's life sentence was commuted to 3 years of house arrest by Nixon. Trump would have given him the Medal of Honor.
I read the first comment as a discussion of why Mormons have had it worse than Jews. Threads get tricky to follow here so if I jumped a queue somehow I apologize.
Doctrinally not true on the subhuman claim, though past actions may have seemed that way. Definitely yes on the conservative bloc. Meh on the white supremacy. We have pockets like any religion or cross section of society but it's not the church as a whole - even in the US.
From the 1850s to the 1970s, Mormon officials taught that black people carried the "curse of Cain," were ineligible to be ordained or to receive temple rites, were fit only to be "servants of servants," and that all of this was "not my policy or the Church's policy. It is the policy of the Lord who has established it."
The essay creates better context for the following statements:
In 1970 a Salt Lake Tribune article said, “President David O. Mckay of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was quoted Wednesday as saying as early as 1954 that ‘There is no doctrine in this church and there never was a doctrine in this church to the effect that the Negroes are under any kind of a divine curse.’
When Spencer W. Kimball became prophet of the Church, he said, “I am not sure that there will be a change, although there could be. We are under the dictates of our Heavenly Father, and this is not my policy or the Church’s policy. It is the policy of the Lord who has established it, and I know of no change, although we are subject to revelations of the Lord in case he should ever wish to make a change.”
Bruce R. McConkie said the following: "Forget everything I have said, or what . . . Brigham Young . . . or whomsoever has said . . . that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world." [Bruce R. McConkie, "New Revelation on Priesthood,"
They already are. See "globalists." It's code-speak for Jews. There's a reason Kanye went to Alex Jones to rant about Jewish people, he was listening to Alex's code speak on "globalists," which Alex has been doing since the mid-00's at a minimum. There's a reason that the GOP base turned on free market economics: they think "globalists" (read: Jewish bankers) run the global economy and opening free markets to the world is what the "globalists" want. It's a big part of why they oppose helping the Ukrainians: they think "globalists" (read: Jews in government) are trying to start WWIII via Ukraine where they'll use working class conservatives in the military as cannon fodder to achieve their "globalist" foreign policy goals. This is why antisemitism and isolationism tend to go hand in glove. It all revolves around thinking "globalists" (read: Jews) run foreign policy.
Indeed Travis, indeed. Tucker’s, Greene’s, Vance’s and the rest’s dripping contempt for Zelensky and neutrality-reverence regarding Putin cannot be read in any way separated from the view that, “Jew leader, bad. Christian leader, good”.
Also. Over on Mastodon I’m seeing a whole lot of trans and lgbtq people talking about buying firearms and learning how to use them.
Going to be interesting when Trump and Fox call for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment when they realize it isn’t just white nationalist christians who own firearms.
The Second amendment has become a lethal fantasy and here's why: When it was written, everything was smooth bore musket or cannon or mortar, pretty simple pretty basic and there was at the time a chance that we could achieve force parity with a Tyrannical Government.
Asymmetrical warfare was pretty much invented at that time, here and in conflicts in Europe and Asia and later in Africa during the Boer wars. That being said, It doesn't really matter how many assault style rifles you have, when someone shows up at the party with a Reaper drone or an M134 Vulcan on a gunship or a Bradley, all platforms you cannot go out and buy or make on a 3d printer its going to be game over.
The other point we should always be aware of as we head down this dystopian rabbit hole is the essential query; " who you going to shoot?" That 18 yr old Guardsman, or the Cop or Sheriff who shows up with a search warrant?
The answer we learn from WACO, and the Bundys is yes, you will shoot the kid and or the LEO.
The tactical firearms classes I occasionally attend here in Colorado have had a strong uptick in LGBTQ+ participants since at least the Trump administration. I'm not talking about pistol classes either, I'm talking about low-light tactical carbine courses and the like.
And yet a recent poll from the state of Missouri (where they're about to pass a bunch of bills lowering the age, not requiring a license or registration, open carry without a permit, etc), 66% of Missourians support stronger gun laws such as background checks, red flag laws to protect victims of domestic violence, requiring permits and no assault rifles until you're 21.
DeSantis wants to turn the rest of the US into Florida, where the state is deciding what the public gets. So, per his approach, this poll is meaningless. Missourians will be told what they get to have.
"I said I never had much use for one. I never said I didn't know how to use one." - Mathew Quigley.
Mark Bowden, the author of "Blackhawk Down" said the most appropriate line he ever read about Mogadishu was that "everything that guns can accomplish has been accomplished in Mogadishu."
Having every American armed to the teeth to the point of 10 year-olds owning automatic rifles as we descend into Somalia would be the arms industry's wet dream. Let us do all we can to preserve civil society so that we are not forced to defend ourselves to that degree.
The more militias proliferate, the weaker a central government gets, usually to the point where the antigovernment militias and the government itself start acting off of the same sheet of music. It's not just about guns being plentiful, it's about antigovernmental militias being plentiful and normalized. Name me a country with a plethora of normalized/armed antigovernment militias involved in politics that has a stable central government outside of the US. I'll wait. "Democratic" Iraq has a score of 29/100 on Freedom House's index for exactly this reason.
The reality is that your safety is, in the vast majority of cases, inversely proportion to the availability and number of weapons.
They don't make you safer--and more people die through the combination of accidents and suicides than from actual gun violence.
There are VERY good reasons why effective, functional states have a monopoly or near monopoly on violence... so you don't end up with Somalia, or Afghanistan.. or any of a number of other 3rd-world shithole type of countries.
These militias need to be shut down. They are UNREGULATED. The purpose of the militias was not to oppose the federal or state government, but to support it in the lack of a standing army (an idea which never actually took much hold, in the face of reality). Militias were BIG in the south because they were intended to be used against slave insurrections--and that racist lineage lives on in most of the ones that exist today.
In any discussion about the 2A with a fellow Democrat I always recommend that they learn to shoot before taking a hard stance against the ownership of and/all firearms. I have a family member that's a member of the trans community and while they don't participate in any kind of activism they do have a fairly extensive collection of long guns and pistols.
I have my own modest firearms collection. None of them has been fired since they closed down the really decent indoor range nearby a decade ago. Some have never been fired.
Originally I was planning to sell them but there are two things that keep me from doing so. First is that I could not live with myself if someone bought my AR-15 (never fired, btw) and decided to seek retribution at a school, mall or other public place. And secondly I'm just paranoid enough to keep them "just in case."
However, I have had my will changed so that -- with the exception of the Kentucky long rifle inherited from great, great, great family members on my father's side -- all of my weapons are to be destroyed.
I started life in Northern Maine. At the ripe old age of 9 I took my first firearms safety course so I could get my first hunting license. I'm not a republican 😑 but guess who knows how to handle firearms? 😏 and also doesn't need one to go get pizza.
Charlie, my advice to you is either a pump action or lever action shotgun. You don't need to have super good aim, but point it in the direction you want the blast to go. I am not here blowing a the pro-gun horn, but, if you feel the need for protection from creeps from the Grand Ole A-Wipe Party (and at this point, the base is running that show, and most of the base are a-wipes), and you don't know if you are good at aiming, then go the shotgun route. As Reese said in Legally Blonde 2--"Don't fight the fabric...change it".
I think that there is a gun owners group of black people, as well. The 2A movement is really emboldening gun ownership across all demographics. Agreed that there may be some surprises at who might be shooting back at whom if the right thinks they have the might.
I grew up across from a wildlife refuge, and most of my neighbors had at least a shotgun, because there were multiple animals within a mile that could kill and/or eat you. For a while in college, I'd go recreational skeet shooting, and was decent. Never really cared for gun ranges.
Lately, I've found myself oddly offended by the alt-right notion that I'm a sitting duck in their desired "civil war". I don't own a gun right now, and don't want to. But I could buy one off Amazon! I could drive 10 minutes in any direction from my house and buy a gun! Just because I listen to folk music and grow a pollinator garden doesn't mean I wouldn't shoot back! These army cosplayers honestly think that "the left" is so group-thinkish and sheeplike, that they would roll over and die in the face of an assault. I find that idea tragically comical.
Adam Kinzinger said it best about the "civil war" scenario, "Casually thrown around by those who never experienced war. Heart medicine won’t be available at Walgreens and half the “play army” folks will be dead in weeks."
Think what you want about fighting back, but I suggest you review Chile, 1973, when Pinochet’s right wing authoritarians seized power and rounded up and killed hundreds of thousands of leftists. The military used to delight in pushing them out of helicopters over the ocean.
Our side has the tanks. Biden isn’t Pinochet. The insurrectionists are stupid and weak. Bandying about “civil war” shows that they have no understanding of the history of this nation that they claim they love so much.
A vote is one thing, what people will do when the shit really goes down is something else--especially in a confused and uncertain situation.
I am a military veteran, I know what type of people tend to serve (or did when I was in) and I am fairly sure they probably haven't changed that much.
If the situation is clear-cut, there probably isn't any real danger--but if you have a contested "fraudulent" election, that is backed by a GoP controlled House and given a whitewash by SCotUS, I tend to think all bets are off. It will depend upon much much of the leadership decides which side is the "legitimate" government... and it won't be just the generals deciding.. or if they even take sides at all, given the reluctance to get involved in domestic politics.
Don't count on the military to save our asses, save our own asses before the military has to get involved by making sure these people don't have a chance to pull that stuff.
I didn't mean to Romanticize the notion of "fighting back". I think invariably it would be horrible. I'm just saying that the idea that people would roll over and accept some sort of nominally-Christian, white-nationalist, might=right rule from the Alt-right is naïve.
I've made a similar point to my deplorable friends for years. It's not the left that's coming after our guns, it will be the right when they realize the left is also armed.
These fuckwads love to talk about how the Nazis would confiscate personal firearms, and that's true! But first, they armed their co-ideologists out the wazoo AND THEN disarmed them WITH popular support
So, there's another one of the great myths of history: The Nazis never gained actual majorities in the Reichstag until after Hitler was already Chancellor. They gained their power there to begin with because the German conservative forces (predominantly their big business and Prussian Junker class, like Hindenburg) wanted to co-opt the Nazis against the left-wing, but especially the Communists. Hindenburg even thought he could control Hitler!
Revolutions ALWAYS eat their own. It is a lesson that few revolutionaries seem to learn... and it is usually the true believers that get eaten.
Just ask the SA... or Robespierre.. or Trotsky.. or any of a LONG list.
Mostly they get eaten because they are too radical--and they get in the way of the power hungry.
Most of the people at CPAC, they are going to be the ones who go to the wall if/when the Rightist revolution comes. Granted they will kill a lot of lefties and trans and gays and blacks first... but they will get the chop, too.
I have long said Mitch and his ilk will be the first to be executed when Putin or Xi or whoever it is walks into the Capitol with the help of the GOP -- because the Putins of the world know better than anyone that the Mitches of the world cannot be trusted -- because anyone who betrays his own country and people will betray you too.
Yes, like California, but restrictions and access are nothing like say Texas. You can’t just buy anything and you certainly cannot open carry or carry without permit.
Being from the midwest, it's actually really funny how many Californians are really into guns, but don't open up about it until they know you aren't from there.
Contrary to what people believe, California is not a homogeneous place. Central California is bright red, hence Nunes, McCarthy, etc.
I myself like to go to a shooting range, but do not own a gun, not because I am against the 2nd amendment. It is because I might shoot my foot by accident. I am for the better regulations or the "well-regulated" regarding guns, though as the second amendment says. I mean, do people really need to have an AK-47?
Capitalism is not just the reason climate change is destroying our planet.it is also the reason we won’t be able to stop global warming. No matter how man times I virtuously clean out a peanut putter jar for recycling, I am not going to affect global warming one little bit. My footprint is too small and recycling is a distraction. Most recycling is too expensive so it quietly ends up in a landfill somewhere. It’s busy work to keep us from panicking.
I hate capitalism, too but I’m not the far left. I don’t know who you mean by the “far left”. Is there any far left public figure or organization or movement you can name?
Remember, sooner or later they always come after the Jews.
Stop them now and we won’t have to stop them later.
I'm sure everyone here is familiar with this poem:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
—Martin Niemöller
We need to take this very seriously right now, with trans people in there as well.
Y'know, I've thought a lot about that great poem, and believe it also applies to Climate Change issues. I live in the Rocky Mountains... we have had fires and then floods, but nothing like those closer to each of our coastlines.
It has occurred to me that by the time Climate Change decides to obliterate our area, no one will be able to help us... Between Putin and mother nature, we are all in very deep trouble.
Sooner or later ... when has it ever been later?
In the US they come for Black people first. They allowed the Jewish people to be white adjacent
Jews didn’t become “white adjacent” until recently, and there will never be acceptance. White supremacy is about Jews. That’s why the Nazis at Charlottesville screamed “Jews will not replace us.”
Most neo-Nazis would like to round up blacks and remove them to the African continent.
They want to exterminate Jews. There’s that word again.
Jewish people are stopped for driving while Jewish or denied jobs due to their Judaism?
They were overtly denied jobs. Hard to stop them for driving as being Jewish is not as easy to identify from across. Denied housing. Beat up and bullied. Told they were going to burn in hell. Heard jew used as a verb to mean cheap or stingy. Poked in the back with a ruler by the boy who sat behind me in 6th grade and called dirty jew. All these things happened to family members or me. And I can assure you such stories are not unique.
How many American Jews were enslaved or lynched here? Why were American Jews allowed to become white adjacent whereas Black and Native Americans were not?
Again, you need to review the history of Judaism in America. We’ve been lynched and mass-murdered. Antisemitism is alive and well in America.
We have no homeland. Jews have been thrown out of every country we’ve settled in; that’s why so many Jews cling so desperately to Israel (which presently could screw up a two-car funeral).
No one is denying that slavery is the great national stain. My only point is that the neo-Nazi movement creates terror in the hearts of many of us, and the MAGA movement is neo-Nazi.
You really want to compare the number of mass murdered or lynched Jewish people in the US to Black or Native people? That suggests you don't know the history if this country.
Jewish people chose to come here. They weren't brought in shackles and then subjected to physical, emotional, and spiritual torture as well as cultural erasure. They weren't invaded and ethnically cleansed. The MAGA movement us as American as Apple pie and fundamentally white supremacist.
I don’t. You do.
Bye now.
Yep. And I loved being told we killed Jesus.
Imagine being told you're subhuman monsters who were better off as slaves or that your culture and society was "primitive" and your people deserved to be exterminated in public school this century. Also, imagine if your country's currency primarily had people on it who committed atrocities against your people.
Oh yeah, how on earth did I forget that? I actually attended a Lutheran church service about 8 years ago (my husband and I were visiting his very devout aunt and uncle and I offered to go with them to be polite- my husband did not want to go but I convinced him to honor them and his own long rejected upbringing.) The pastor's sermon was bizarre. All about conspiracy theory and pretty much about how the Jews conspired to kill Jesus- he never came out and said that but the implications were clear. Horrific. Our aunt and uncle did not get it.
My Southern Baptist father’s minister told him his Jewish wife and children were going to hell. That was special.
Ouch. Good thing we don't believe in he'll.
Jews were denied housing, jobs and university admissions because of their Judaism, but as I said, we’ve become white adjacent since the end of the Red Scare.
WS is about Jews. You’re talking about racism. The two things are different in mission, not in degree.
What supremacy is about whiteness being supreme. In the US, Black and Native people have born the brunt of white supremacy
I’d suggest you read up on the National Front. Or 8Chan. Neo-Nazis are not talking about blacks.
I call this the Oppression Olympics. Whose people have suffered the most? I imagine that we can agree that it hasn’t been white Christian males, so let’s shake on that and part friends.
They also slaughtered a massive group of innocent people. We have our faults but we don’t massacre people.
I’m seeing a lot of “in America” qualifiers on assertions about Jews here, as though Germany were on Mars, instead of right over thataway, and the place that these nuts still consider their Fatherland.
Maybe, Kim, you aren't old enough to remember My Lai.
I’m 65. I’m not sure what Jews had to do with My Lai, though.
The way I read the thread, Jews weren't the only ones the alt-right is willing to eliminate. From that perspective, My Lai, while not state sanctioned, is an example of a massacre at the hands of American citizens. William Calley's life sentence was commuted to 3 years of house arrest by Nixon. Trump would have given him the Medal of Honor.
I read the first comment as a discussion of why Mormons have had it worse than Jews. Threads get tricky to follow here so if I jumped a queue somehow I apologize.
LDS are a key bloc in conservatism and white supremacy. They believed Native and Black people were subhuman
Doctrinally not true on the subhuman claim, though past actions may have seemed that way. Definitely yes on the conservative bloc. Meh on the white supremacy. We have pockets like any religion or cross section of society but it's not the church as a whole - even in the US.
From the 1850s to the 1970s, Mormon officials taught that black people carried the "curse of Cain," were ineligible to be ordained or to receive temple rites, were fit only to be "servants of servants," and that all of this was "not my policy or the Church's policy. It is the policy of the Lord who has established it."
Context matters. Your statements above may not all be from the same person or originated from the same conversation.
Also, we are talking policy vs doctrine.
Read the following for better clarification:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/race-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng
The essay creates better context for the following statements:
In 1970 a Salt Lake Tribune article said, “President David O. Mckay of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was quoted Wednesday as saying as early as 1954 that ‘There is no doctrine in this church and there never was a doctrine in this church to the effect that the Negroes are under any kind of a divine curse.’
When Spencer W. Kimball became prophet of the Church, he said, “I am not sure that there will be a change, although there could be. We are under the dictates of our Heavenly Father, and this is not my policy or the Church’s policy. It is the policy of the Lord who has established it, and I know of no change, although we are subject to revelations of the Lord in case he should ever wish to make a change.”
Bruce R. McConkie said the following: "Forget everything I have said, or what . . . Brigham Young . . . or whomsoever has said . . . that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world." [Bruce R. McConkie, "New Revelation on Priesthood,"
Indeed, as Radley Balko put it:
“I never said Jews should be eradicated from public life. I said ‘Judaism’ should be eradicated from public life.”
https://twitter.com/radleybalko/status/1632243057067282432
what's that phrase? "A distinction without a difference?"
"Those trains are never late."-Chris Rock
They already are. See "globalists." It's code-speak for Jews. There's a reason Kanye went to Alex Jones to rant about Jewish people, he was listening to Alex's code speak on "globalists," which Alex has been doing since the mid-00's at a minimum. There's a reason that the GOP base turned on free market economics: they think "globalists" (read: Jewish bankers) run the global economy and opening free markets to the world is what the "globalists" want. It's a big part of why they oppose helping the Ukrainians: they think "globalists" (read: Jews in government) are trying to start WWIII via Ukraine where they'll use working class conservatives in the military as cannon fodder to achieve their "globalist" foreign policy goals. This is why antisemitism and isolationism tend to go hand in glove. It all revolves around thinking "globalists" (read: Jews) run foreign policy.
They don’t really think any of that. It’s what they claim to believe so as to fan the flames of antisemitism.
Indeed Travis, indeed. Tucker’s, Greene’s, Vance’s and the rest’s dripping contempt for Zelensky and neutrality-reverence regarding Putin cannot be read in any way separated from the view that, “Jew leader, bad. Christian leader, good”.
As Chris Rock said about anti-semitism - in the best phrase ever coined on the subject - that train is never late.
Also. Over on Mastodon I’m seeing a whole lot of trans and lgbtq people talking about buying firearms and learning how to use them.
Going to be interesting when Trump and Fox call for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment when they realize it isn’t just white nationalist christians who own firearms.
The Second amendment has become a lethal fantasy and here's why: When it was written, everything was smooth bore musket or cannon or mortar, pretty simple pretty basic and there was at the time a chance that we could achieve force parity with a Tyrannical Government.
Asymmetrical warfare was pretty much invented at that time, here and in conflicts in Europe and Asia and later in Africa during the Boer wars. That being said, It doesn't really matter how many assault style rifles you have, when someone shows up at the party with a Reaper drone or an M134 Vulcan on a gunship or a Bradley, all platforms you cannot go out and buy or make on a 3d printer its going to be game over.
The other point we should always be aware of as we head down this dystopian rabbit hole is the essential query; " who you going to shoot?" That 18 yr old Guardsman, or the Cop or Sheriff who shows up with a search warrant?
The answer we learn from WACO, and the Bundys is yes, you will shoot the kid and or the LEO.
The tactical firearms classes I occasionally attend here in Colorado have had a strong uptick in LGBTQ+ participants since at least the Trump administration. I'm not talking about pistol classes either, I'm talking about low-light tactical carbine courses and the like.
Far left, gay, trans, POC gun groups are a big thing. Libs are the only ones arguing against guns and even some of them are pro 2A.
And yet a recent poll from the state of Missouri (where they're about to pass a bunch of bills lowering the age, not requiring a license or registration, open carry without a permit, etc), 66% of Missourians support stronger gun laws such as background checks, red flag laws to protect victims of domestic violence, requiring permits and no assault rifles until you're 21.
The problem is the unasked poll question: Do you care enough about this issue to change the way you vote?
The answer for too many, in too many of these red states, is "no".
DeSantis wants to turn the rest of the US into Florida, where the state is deciding what the public gets. So, per his approach, this poll is meaningless. Missourians will be told what they get to have.
I don't think they were asked.
The Second Amendment does not discriminate. The right wing might want to think about that.
I'm pro a well-regulated militia: is that what you mean?
"I said I never had much use for one. I never said I didn't know how to use one." - Mathew Quigley.
Mark Bowden, the author of "Blackhawk Down" said the most appropriate line he ever read about Mogadishu was that "everything that guns can accomplish has been accomplished in Mogadishu."
Having every American armed to the teeth to the point of 10 year-olds owning automatic rifles as we descend into Somalia would be the arms industry's wet dream. Let us do all we can to preserve civil society so that we are not forced to defend ourselves to that degree.
pretty sure the gun industry gives Bulk discounts to our congresspeople... Y'know... for the children!
Quigley Down Under was an enjoyable movie.. especially the ending.
Oldie, but a goodie- "The dingo ate my baby!"
The more militias proliferate, the weaker a central government gets, usually to the point where the antigovernment militias and the government itself start acting off of the same sheet of music. It's not just about guns being plentiful, it's about antigovernmental militias being plentiful and normalized. Name me a country with a plethora of normalized/armed antigovernment militias involved in politics that has a stable central government outside of the US. I'll wait. "Democratic" Iraq has a score of 29/100 on Freedom House's index for exactly this reason.
The reality is that your safety is, in the vast majority of cases, inversely proportion to the availability and number of weapons.
They don't make you safer--and more people die through the combination of accidents and suicides than from actual gun violence.
There are VERY good reasons why effective, functional states have a monopoly or near monopoly on violence... so you don't end up with Somalia, or Afghanistan.. or any of a number of other 3rd-world shithole type of countries.
These militias need to be shut down. They are UNREGULATED. The purpose of the militias was not to oppose the federal or state government, but to support it in the lack of a standing army (an idea which never actually took much hold, in the face of reality). Militias were BIG in the south because they were intended to be used against slave insurrections--and that racist lineage lives on in most of the ones that exist today.
Yup
The Quigley Down Under quote reminds me of the scene from To Kill a Mockingbird where Atticus shoots the rabid dog.
There are an awful lot of people out there who don't like guns, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't be adept at using them.
In any discussion about the 2A with a fellow Democrat I always recommend that they learn to shoot before taking a hard stance against the ownership of and/all firearms. I have a family member that's a member of the trans community and while they don't participate in any kind of activism they do have a fairly extensive collection of long guns and pistols.
I have my own modest firearms collection. None of them has been fired since they closed down the really decent indoor range nearby a decade ago. Some have never been fired.
Originally I was planning to sell them but there are two things that keep me from doing so. First is that I could not live with myself if someone bought my AR-15 (never fired, btw) and decided to seek retribution at a school, mall or other public place. And secondly I'm just paranoid enough to keep them "just in case."
However, I have had my will changed so that -- with the exception of the Kentucky long rifle inherited from great, great, great family members on my father's side -- all of my weapons are to be destroyed.
I started life in Northern Maine. At the ripe old age of 9 I took my first firearms safety course so I could get my first hunting license. I'm not a republican 😑 but guess who knows how to handle firearms? 😏 and also doesn't need one to go get pizza.
Charlie, my advice to you is either a pump action or lever action shotgun. You don't need to have super good aim, but point it in the direction you want the blast to go. I am not here blowing a the pro-gun horn, but, if you feel the need for protection from creeps from the Grand Ole A-Wipe Party (and at this point, the base is running that show, and most of the base are a-wipes), and you don't know if you are good at aiming, then go the shotgun route. As Reese said in Legally Blonde 2--"Don't fight the fabric...change it".
I think that there is a gun owners group of black people, as well. The 2A movement is really emboldening gun ownership across all demographics. Agreed that there may be some surprises at who might be shooting back at whom if the right thinks they have the might.
https://youtu.be/yJqfNroFp8U. This seems a propos.
Hilarious!
Bingo!! Or is that, Bango!!!!!
I grew up across from a wildlife refuge, and most of my neighbors had at least a shotgun, because there were multiple animals within a mile that could kill and/or eat you. For a while in college, I'd go recreational skeet shooting, and was decent. Never really cared for gun ranges.
Lately, I've found myself oddly offended by the alt-right notion that I'm a sitting duck in their desired "civil war". I don't own a gun right now, and don't want to. But I could buy one off Amazon! I could drive 10 minutes in any direction from my house and buy a gun! Just because I listen to folk music and grow a pollinator garden doesn't mean I wouldn't shoot back! These army cosplayers honestly think that "the left" is so group-thinkish and sheeplike, that they would roll over and die in the face of an assault. I find that idea tragically comical.
Adam Kinzinger said it best about the "civil war" scenario, "Casually thrown around by those who never experienced war. Heart medicine won’t be available at Walgreens and half the “play army” folks will be dead in weeks."
Think what you want about fighting back, but I suggest you review Chile, 1973, when Pinochet’s right wing authoritarians seized power and rounded up and killed hundreds of thousands of leftists. The military used to delight in pushing them out of helicopters over the ocean.
Our side has the tanks. Biden isn’t Pinochet. The insurrectionists are stupid and weak. Bandying about “civil war” shows that they have no understanding of the history of this nation that they claim they love so much.
A lot of the guys driving the tanks are far more Rightist than is probably good for the country... as are a surprising number of the brass.
Don't count on them too much, especially if the Media does their usual fine job and SCotUS decides to back a soft coup, because it is "legal."
Now we've pivoted from Pinochet to Tiananmen square. Is 12:30 too early for a beer?
I've been in more than one bar and home rec room/man cave with a clock on the wall where all 12 of the hour spaces are "5."
It's always happy hour somewhere.
Most of them voted Biden.
A vote is one thing, what people will do when the shit really goes down is something else--especially in a confused and uncertain situation.
I am a military veteran, I know what type of people tend to serve (or did when I was in) and I am fairly sure they probably haven't changed that much.
If the situation is clear-cut, there probably isn't any real danger--but if you have a contested "fraudulent" election, that is backed by a GoP controlled House and given a whitewash by SCotUS, I tend to think all bets are off. It will depend upon much much of the leadership decides which side is the "legitimate" government... and it won't be just the generals deciding.. or if they even take sides at all, given the reluctance to get involved in domestic politics.
Don't count on the military to save our asses, save our own asses before the military has to get involved by making sure these people don't have a chance to pull that stuff.
I didn't mean to Romanticize the notion of "fighting back". I think invariably it would be horrible. I'm just saying that the idea that people would roll over and accept some sort of nominally-Christian, white-nationalist, might=right rule from the Alt-right is naïve.
When the black panthers showed up at the California legislature in the late '60s, a bunch of conservatives suddenly got interested in gun control.
Reagan, no less.
I've made a similar point to my deplorable friends for years. It's not the left that's coming after our guns, it will be the right when they realize the left is also armed.
Yeah, they seem to think no "lefty" has a weapon. Uh, no, we just don't snuggle them at Subway ya dummy. I don't need it to go to Starbucks 😑
These fuckwads love to talk about how the Nazis would confiscate personal firearms, and that's true! But first, they armed their co-ideologists out the wazoo AND THEN disarmed them WITH popular support
So, there's another one of the great myths of history: The Nazis never gained actual majorities in the Reichstag until after Hitler was already Chancellor. They gained their power there to begin with because the German conservative forces (predominantly their big business and Prussian Junker class, like Hindenburg) wanted to co-opt the Nazis against the left-wing, but especially the Communists. Hindenburg even thought he could control Hitler!
Oh, I was thinking of what they did to the Brownshirts. Kept them armed, let them loose....and then turned on them
Revolutions ALWAYS eat their own. It is a lesson that few revolutionaries seem to learn... and it is usually the true believers that get eaten.
Just ask the SA... or Robespierre.. or Trotsky.. or any of a LONG list.
Mostly they get eaten because they are too radical--and they get in the way of the power hungry.
Most of the people at CPAC, they are going to be the ones who go to the wall if/when the Rightist revolution comes. Granted they will kill a lot of lefties and trans and gays and blacks first... but they will get the chop, too.
Leaving the actual grifters in charge.
I have long said Mitch and his ilk will be the first to be executed when Putin or Xi or whoever it is walks into the Capitol with the help of the GOP -- because the Putins of the world know better than anyone that the Mitches of the world cannot be trusted -- because anyone who betrays his own country and people will betray you too.
Yes, like California, but restrictions and access are nothing like say Texas. You can’t just buy anything and you certainly cannot open carry or carry without permit.
Being from the midwest, it's actually really funny how many Californians are really into guns, but don't open up about it until they know you aren't from there.
Contrary to what people believe, California is not a homogeneous place. Central California is bright red, hence Nunes, McCarthy, etc.
I myself like to go to a shooting range, but do not own a gun, not because I am against the 2nd amendment. It is because I might shoot my foot by accident. I am for the better regulations or the "well-regulated" regarding guns, though as the second amendment says. I mean, do people really need to have an AK-47?
What is a far-left gun nut? You mean Marxist/Leninists?
Capitalism is not just the reason climate change is destroying our planet.it is also the reason we won’t be able to stop global warming. No matter how man times I virtuously clean out a peanut putter jar for recycling, I am not going to affect global warming one little bit. My footprint is too small and recycling is a distraction. Most recycling is too expensive so it quietly ends up in a landfill somewhere. It’s busy work to keep us from panicking.
I hate capitalism, too but I’m not the far left. I don’t know who you mean by the “far left”. Is there any far left public figure or organization or movement you can name?