And lest we forget…
… Jared Loughner is just another person in a long-line of people who have been influenced by the gun-toting, kill’em all rhetoric of Fox News. And if you doubt that, please use the Google to look up Byron Williams and Glenn Beck, and/or Dr. Tiller and Bill-O.
This is not an isolated phenomenon, there is a clear cause and effect relationship already in play.
And anyone who tells you that the left has hate rhetoric (and they will cite lefties calling Chimpy McStagger a nazi) should be reminded that Fox has a national platform that literally reaches into every household in the country. Some hot-headed commentator on a lefty blog that is read by maybe 12 people is not an equivalent.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Tengrain. Tengrain said: New at MPS : And lest we forget… http://www.mockpaperscissors.com/2011/01/10/and-lest-we-forget/ [...]
After spending the weekend obsessing about this story, I only have one coherent question/issue I’d like to raise. It began with this item about the suspect:
Pima Community College sent a letter to his parents on Oct. 7 telling them that if Loughner wished to return to the school, he would have to “obtain a mental health clearance indicating that, in the opinion of a mental health professional, his presence at the College does not present a danger to himself or others,” the school said in a statement.
If an institution of higher learning fears for the safety of its students, staff, and faculty because of the continuing presence of this person, then why on Earth was he able to do any of the following:
Go about his business without any kind of medical and/or legal supervision.
Purchase a firearm.
Discuss.
Some are responding with an Obama quote about “if they bring a knife to the fight, we’ll bring a gun.” Better if he avoids weapon imagery, sure, but it’s still not the same as putting cross hairs on specific districts with a list of names.
The failure of law enforcement to launch a criminal investigation of Sarah Palin is a national disgrace.
Tommyspoon: the answer; in America, after 50 or so years of NRA Second Amendment Maximalism, and convincing poorly informed folks (mostly rural and southern) that any restriction on guns, their design, manufacture, possession or use amounts to bad Libruls/Yankees/Communitst/theUN/Neworldorder taking their penises, I mean, gun, and thus we have to let crazy people have them. I mean, it’s in the Bible, er, Second Amendment. It’s ok to punish people for using guns in a crime, but against the Constitution (and the American Way! and most Hollywood movies) to try to prevent gun violence.
I’ve had guys threaten to beat me up when I told them “Obama a’int going to take your gun. How would he? Do you have any idea how many gun owners there are?” And I’m a gun owner, and though I haven’t hunted, it’s just a tool of rural life. I’ve had to shoot a rabid raccoon in the last year, and sadly, put down injured animals when the vet was hours away. I like venison, and see the need of hunting overpopulated deer. But the carefully nurtured paranoia of the Right (and the Gun Industry has a hand here) is just that, insanity.
They used to manufacture Glock guns just up the road in Ducktown TN. The guy had a reputation as a real dick and right wing public ‘Patriot’, and when he died (and his operation became Leinadi, noted for cheap guns) his widow sold the business and became a sort of public spectacle, one of those cases of “if you’re poor, your crazy; rich, eccentric’. She drove a old Jaguar, and would turn up in overalls with a designer jacket and costume jewelry and buy stuff from the locals. She would turn up in the bookstore I ran and buy obscure books and at some point would begin to claim that she had been raped or sued or was being controlled by the British Royals and the CIA. She conceived a crush on one of my current roommates, and ordered him an expensive leather bound Complete Shakespeare in 12 vols.; a gay man in a longterm relationship, he did not want to encourage her, to the point of keeping her out of his gallery, where she had spent a chunk over time. She threatened several people with guns, and was not charged, or the guns taken.
“Sylvia” would eventually conceive a passion for another man, a mechanic, who would ‘spurn’ her, and she would get locked up as criminally insane when she tried to hire a homeless guy to kill the mechanic and then try to shoot him when he refused..
They did finally take her gun then, however.
damn, should be ‘SECOND amendment’.
I’m actually for First Amendment maximalism…
Fixed it for you… Rgds, TG
TommySpoon -
Yes, this is an excellent point, and thank you for making it.
I’m keeping an eye out for an official NRA response because I’m betting that it will include a call for more citizens to be armed to the teeth. “This wouldn’t happen,” Wesson McWinchester did not say, “if everyone was packing heat.”
You know it’s coming.
Rgds,
TG
Thanks Mr Bill for sharing and TG you’re right, if every one is packing then crime will go down. Oh sure with job market being what is and a new round of homeless coming this going to be really sad and a govt filled with criminals. This ride is about to really bumpy.
teacher says every time a bell rings and right wing wacko shoot a gun indiscriminately
when the assault weapons ban expired in 2004 – none other than BUSH wanted to renew it
congress – both houses controlled by the GOP sat on their fat howitzers and let it lapse
no person needs a 30 shot magazine for the GLock – NO ONE!
distributorcap: no person needs a 30 shot magazine for the GLock – NO ONE!
With the possible exception of the Duggars’ kids.
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! Dimitrios, um, killed the king.
Bravo, and well done!
Rgds,
TG