What isn't said about Guns

[Tom Rinaldo]

A small but increasingly influential element of the Republican Right opposes all efforts to regulate assault rifles, semi-automatic weapons, and high capacity ammo magazines precisely because they are effective in combat situations, but no one seems willing to say it. All of the eminently reasonable comments about hunters not needing automatic weapons to bag a deer miss the point completely. The NRA tries to muddy the waters whenever they can but no one seriously tries to make a case for hunters needing semi-automatic pistols with large ammo magazines. Even the NRA knows no one would buy that line. So instead they raise the specter of "a slippery slope" that begins with machine guns banned and ends with hunting outlawed. They then shift the focus to crime and personal security, because they know only a shrinking small minority of Americans still hunt or engage in sport gunmanship.

But an insistence that individuals need access to semi-automatic weapons to protect themselves is irrational, if the threat envisioned is common crime. If the solution to street crime is arming the public with semi-automatic weapons, than the cure is far more deadly than the disease. Innocent bystanders already are killed in shootouts. No one is safer if threatened individuals begin spraying their near vicinity with a hail of bullets. Semi-automatic assault rifles are offensive weapons, designed to kill large numbers of people. A standard pistol or a shotgun is far better suited for defensive use, unless of course you are defending yourself against a hoard of heavily armed attackers

Which begs the obvious unasked question: Is that why the most unflinching opponents of reasonable gun control measures refuse to give an inch? Are they arming themselves with the weapons most appropriate for future combat scenarios? I think it naïve to assume that the answer to that question is anything other than yes. Right wing militias have been forming for decades, training for overt military confrontations. Mainstream candidates for the U.S. Senate now talk openly about “Second Amendment remedies”. Increasingly the phrase, “Government is the enemy” has taken on literal implications. And then there are the survivalists, large segments of which believe that in some coming apocalypse roving lawless mobs will descend upon rob and kill anyone who had the foresight to assemble the provisions needed to weather the collapse of civilization. Heavy weaponry will be needed, they believe, to survive that approaching crimson dawn.

Would most of the individuals now motivated to defend themselves against the specter of a full blown “Communist Fascist U.S. Government”, or the inevitable Zombie hoards, hesitate before actually turning their combat weaponry against fellow American citizens over perceived but non-existent threats? I like to think most would, if push ever came to gun. That might prevent a future slaughter along the lines of a civil war, but it doesn’t help us now. In subservience to their paranoid delusions sane gun regulations are off the table today. American is held hostage to right wing political zealotry that accepts increasing mayhem and slaughter on American streets as unfortunate but necessary collateral damage. It is time to face that reality.

[Hoyt]

1. These f**kers don't have society's best interest at heart.

[Tom Rinaldo]

3. Yes, those folks

I suppose many of them think they have society's best interests at heart, but that doesn't make it true.

[Tom Rinaldo]

4. Which militia movement is that by the way? n/t

[Hoyt]

5. Those with Tbag flag are the Michigan Militia. They have taken all their propaganda down today.

The first two photos were from a protest, I think in Michigan or Wisconsin, earlier this year when the little tool in the blue shirt was arrested for carrying a gun down a city street to demonstrate his love for guns, militias, and racism. I hope someone is kicking his ass (figuratively) today and not treating him like a hero for promoting more guns in more places and all the right wing crud that goes along with that.

Glad to see that someone at the Michigan Militia had the good sense to take down all their racist, gun loving propaganda -- at least for today.

[Zoeisright]

6. Lots of under endowed jerks there.

With their little penis substitutes.

They look fucking pathetic.

[Hoyt]

7. This is what they have on their site today.

They ought to be ashamed.

[Tom Rinaldo]

2. Quick observation as a Kick

On a high usage day like today on DU, if you like a thread enough to give it a Rec, consider giving it a kick also. Otherwise threads that you support can drop quickly off the DU radaar with less than 100 total views. I'l be trying to remember that also today.

[erinlough]

8. I know a Michigan Militia "man"

He worked with my husband. He was very quiet, never talked, carried all the time, and was angry at everyone. My happiest day was when he finally quit and left the building for good. I told my husband I voted him the most likely to go nuts and kill people at work. On the day he was expected to leave, his last day, I begged my husband to call in sick. We ran into him up north in Michigan one summer when we were vacationing, he was all decked out in some kind of uniform and he wouldn't acknowledge my husband. Very strange man.

[Tom Rinaldo]

9. That is spooky, in the worst kind of way

I haave never knowingly had to work alongside a militia member, but it would make me nervous, that's for damn sure. Militias were a rapidly growing movement prior to the Oklahoma City bombing, and they keep sprouting up again. There was a Republican Congresswoman who virtually was a spokesperson for that movement after Waco Texas. They were begining to come out of the shadows again befor the Gabbie Giffords assasination attempt deflated some of the violence against Government talk. I think they are the modern heirs to the old KKK,though not as exclusively focused on race. But like the KKK I fear that their membership and ideology has infiltrated government, particularly at the local Republican Party and office holder levels, far more extensively than many people realize.

[FredStembottom]

10. ...and face the self-fulfilling part.

They stockpile weapons for battle.

The battle over stockpiling weapons.

Is there any way to stop that train?

[Tom Rinaldo]

11. Here's something just posted on my Kos Diary

I think it illustrates your point; guns needed to defend guns (from the law):

"There's an illogical view among many rural redneck types that if they have enough guns, they can defend their property from overreaching police and other government forces. It is so illogical because the police will always have more and bigger weapons with unlimited ammunition. Still though, many rednecks I know pride themselves on how many guns they own and on how they could take out a small army if anyone ever tried to take their guns away. Most of these guys also can't afford more than a few boxes of ammo for their arsenal but that doesn't seem to matter.
by Tim D M on Sat Dec 15, 2012 at 08:18:11 AM PST

[FredStembottom]

13. Feelings of power.

No increase in actual political power, of course.

But, oh!, what a feeling!

[Azathoth]

12. The NRA is definitely playing to the militia/survivalist contingent

and it's getting worse as politics become more polarized and the NRA becomes ever more a subsidiary of the GOP. They cannot afford to lose the financial support of the extreme base, which means pandering not to hunters and sportsmen but to guys who are more interested in marching around the local shopping mall with an ar15 slung over their shoulder.

But that isn't the whole story. A lot of pro-Second Amendment folks see gun control the way progressives see partial birth abortion bans. At the outset, they are uncomfortable with the premise, because the goal is to put limits on a constitutional right. Then they look at the proposed regulations and realize they are often arbitrary and won't accomplish what pro-gun control advocates say they will. And then they start to scrutinize the people pushing the regulations, and they come to the same conclusion that progressives come to when looking at the folks pushing abortion regulations: these guys aren't interested in solving a specific problem. They've identified a morally-difficult crack into which they are trying to drive a wedge so as to slowly whittle away at a constitutional right they fundamentally disagree with. At this point, the pro-Second Amendment person logs on to a progressive board like DU and sees the posts about repealing the Second Amendment and banning everything but muskets and cap guns and all their suspicions are confirmed. Bam! another donation goes out to the NRA: "don't give an inch to these gun-grabbers!"

[Tom Rinaldo]

14. Thanks for a useful post

It gives me a little more insight as to how a tiny fraction of the populous holding an extreme view of society can amplify their support. While there is truth no doubt in your observations about "both sides", not all voices calling for gun control have a covert agenda of any sort. Many if not most simply want to cut back on avoidable needless and tragic gun deaths emplying common sense solutions. Strong Second Amendment advocates also have a civic obligation to be proactive in advancing sensible solutions to a dangerous growing public safety crisis. A good argument can be made that doing so will ultimately strengthen public support for preserving legitimate Second Amendment rights.

It's not like humanity hasn't found ways to manage potentially "slippery slopes" before. In many parts of the world people use terracing of hillsides to counter the problem of slippery slopes, allowing thlse hills to be gainfully used for agriculture and the like. Gun advocates have the ability and option to carve out reasonable positions to make their stands on, instead they support things like gun show exceptions to background checks.

[Odin2005]

15. They are delusionally paranoid.

They have been told constantly for 20 years that UN black helicopters are about to come and turn America into a Communist dictatorship.

[Tom Rinaldo]

16. I used to work in Mental Health

Delusions must be countered, often slowly and usualy very carefully but countered none the less, for a person suffering from them is regain a firmer grip on reality. Instead powerful vested interests on the right stoke those delusions for profit and power.

[Edweird]

17. Direct me to the part of the 2nd amendment that refers to "hunting".

I haven't seen it. Nor have I seen anything mentioning "need". I have, however, read more than a few statements by the founding fathers that makes clear the purpose and intent of the 2nd amendment.

[Taverner]

18. Doomsday Preppers. The very thought of a civil war gives them boners.

[Tom Rinaldo]

19. We now know the shooters mother had strong survivalist leanngs

Is anyone in the media talking yet about the constituency out there that demands the right to own combat weapoms because they are combat weapons?