Before the Culture Wars, a Democratic senator and guns

[guntard]

Few activities provide me with as much pleasure as reading Gore Vidal's essays, novels and his two memoirs, Palimpsest and Point to Point Navigation, which I recently completed. He was friend, acquaintance or family to much of the US ruling class, back in the day, with a single thread of regret running through his memoirs being that he has quite unexpectedly outlived almost all the characters that appear in them.

I was amused, but not very surprised, to encounter this anecdote concerning Vidal, his step-brother-in-law JFK and Tennessee Williams (whom Vidal called the "Glorious Bird") in Palimpsest:

In 1958 I went down to Miami to meet Tennessee and the film producer Sam Spiegel. Would I write the screenplay for Suddenly, Last Summer? The Bird was manic that season and Sam more than usually devious . . .

When Jackie heard that we were in Miami, she asked us up to Palm Beach for lunch. The Bird had no idea who they were but took my word for it that Jack was running for president. We arrived an hour late. Jack was firing a rifle at a target on the lawn. He was not a very good shot; and I was as bad as he. The Bird casually took the rifle from him and shot three bull's-eyes, "Using only my blind eye," he cackled.

It is illustrated with a photo of Tennessee with the rifle, while Vidal and JFK look on (without any eye or ear protection):



Since this was prior to 1970, there is nothing really surprising about a Democratic Senator from Massachusetts shooting a rifle in his backyard not for any photo op political purpose but for simple recreation, a "sporting use" of firearms in which, incredibly, no animals are harmed. And we should be only a little more surprised that the flamboyant (if you know what I mean, and I think you do) playwright Tennessee Williams turns out to be a crack shot.

In those days, a Democratic Senator from Massachusetts was much more likely to associate gun control with Jim Crow. Later, sadly, the respective leaderships of both parties latched onto gun control as a delightfully polarizing issue useful in separating the sheep from the goats, and of immense value in the emerging American Culture Wars.

Here's another photo for the road:

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

1. Thanks for the photos

Yes, those were different times. Eye and ear protection was not used much. Even the Army didn't use it during training, and the M14's were loud.

Nice shooting range, with a few thousand miles of ocean as a backstop.

[benEzra]

2. Wonderful photos. Thank you.

BTW, can you ID the rifle? Looks like a tube-fed .22 with a magazine loading port in the right side of the stock, possibly a semiautomatic but the photo isn't clear enough to be sure.

Kennedy also owned an early AR-15, ca. 1961 or 1962. Not sure if it was a civilian AR or a NFA Title 2/Class III.

[SteveM]

50. I wonder, too. Looks a little like my "Ought-three" .22 with obsolete....

Winchester WAR (Winchester Automatic Rifle) ammo, or a "Model 66" which succeeded the Ought-3 in the 1930s. The cartridges in both are introduced into a swash-cut in the side of the stock (after pulling out a long tube from the foot). The rifle is initially loaded with a finger plunger in the fore-end. From there on out, it fires ten rounds employing a mechanical blow-back mechanism designed by T.C. Johnson. Fairly reliable and ballistically good (both the obsolete WAR and Long Rifle have similar figures, though the former is shorter and fatter). I can't tell from the picture, but if the but is cut with an old-style curve to "fit" the shoulder, it may be an Ought-3. Mine is that way since it was made in 1905. BTW, the models are heavy owing to the blow-back principle of balancing the recoil with lots of metal!

My late Dad bought one in Zephyrhills, Florida, in 1946. Beautifully made with nice let-ins.

[tisfortomi]

58. Not an "Ought-3," I think...

Winchester WAR (Winchester Automatic Rifle) ammo, or a "Model 66" which succeeded the Ought-3 in the 1930s.

The '03 was succeeded by the "63," not "66." But I don't think it's either of those, both of which had a squared-off receiver (the "hump" referred to elsewhere). As someone else here has suggested, it's almost certainly a Browning like this one:

http://www.browning.com/products/catalog/firearms/detail.asp?value=022B&cat_id=021&type_id=001

[iverglas]

3. they were rich, white, privileged men

doing what rich, white, privileged men had always done to amuse themselves.

Do you seriously imagine for a minute that they were giving a thought to anything other than their rich, white, privileged male selves?

Do you seriously think that they would have answered with an enthusiastic YES!! if asked whether it was an excellent idea for the poor, not white, unprivileged males in their vicinity to have the toys they were playing with?

What exactly was this little tale supposed to be in aid of?


By the way, if you're the author of this little appreciation, is there some reason that you think it's appropriate to refer to a gay man by saying flamboyant (if you know what I mean, and I think you do)? I mean, that might have been how rich, white, privileged men in the 1950s talked, but it's not really how, er, we do. Maybe you should consult a pink pistol on that. Hahaha.

[ejbrush]

4. I can't speak to anyone else's experience,

but I can relate mine.
I remember target shooting in our backyard growing up in Northern Wisconsin not so many years ago. I am not rich or privileged, and only 3/4 white.
I remember going shooting with both my grandfather's, both of whom were lifelong Wisconsin Progressive Democrats.
They were white, though not privileged and certainly nowhere near rich.
I have gone out and busted clay pigeons with my uncles, Democrats too, veterans and Oneida Indians to boot (we refer to ourselves as "indians" whether PC or not, as it is stated that way on our Tribal Seal, and is quite succinct as well).
They are not white, not rich and nowhere near privileged.

The point I'm trying to make is there are a lot of people that enjoy shooting as recreation and hobby, and to summarily dismiss it as a pursuit of the gentry is not entirely accurate.

I think the original poster was trying to convey through image and words that within living memory, plinking targets with a .22 in the backyard would be considered entirely normal and within the scope of acceptable behavior. This assumes, of course, safe and responsible gun handling practices, good knowlege of backstop, precautions against ricocette, etc., but human beings of that generation have always seemed to me to have a pretty good head for details like that.

BTW, if I were to venture a guess, I'd say that the rifle were either a Winchester Model 63 Self-Loader. Tubular magazine in the buttstock, oval ejection port on the right side. Dandy little rifle in it's day, made the right way (take large block of steel, cut away everything that doesn't look like the finished product, repeat with large piece of walnut).

[sl8]

18. Nice post, thank you

I'd guess that it was a Browning .22 autoloader, based on the relative size of the receiver compared to the forearm, but you might well be right. It's a pretty blurry picture and we can't see the front of the forearm.

The 63's receiver has a distinctive "hump" where it meets the buttstock, but, for the life of me, I can't tell if the rifle in the picture has it or not. I think that it doesn't.

[fightthegoodfightnow]

25. Humps and Buttstocks...........LOL

You write about a distinctive "hump" where it meets the buttstock' proving once and for all what guns are ***REALLY*** all about.

:sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[sl8]

33. You've lost me

Did you not understand what I meant by the "hump" of the rifle's receiver? It's like a camel's hump - a protuberance. You do know what a buttstock is, correct?

How did you understand my statement?

[qdemn7]

11. Why should they be concerned?

They were having some fun, enjoying life, enjoying shooting and other men's company. Or is fun something only poor, not white, unprivileged males should engage in?

Do you seriously think that the poor, not white, unprivileged males having some fun would care what the rich, white, privileged men were doing?

I bet they really were having fun, since apparently there were no women around. :rofl:

[friendly_iconoclast]

12. Here's some non-rich, white or privileged men practicing shooting

This especially for ejbrush:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hayes_Pond
This also happened in 1958

Apparently Klansmen make great targets!

And this from a Marxist listserv, no less (tho I don't buy Tyson's analysis of the
Lumbee's victory):


http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/1999w42/msg00022.htm

From "Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams & the Roots of Black Power", by Timothy Tyson

(snip)One night while Dr. Perry was at an NAACP meeting, Bertha Perry called and
told him that the Ku Klux Klan had threatened to blow up their house. Even
though death threats were hardly unusual among black activists, "most of
the guys left the meeting and went home and got their guns and went to his
house," Robert Williams recalled. Sipping coffee in Perry's garage with
shotguns across their laps, the men agreed that defending their families
was too important to do in haphazard fashion. "We started to really getting
organized and setting up, digging foxholes and started getting up
ammunition and training guys," Williams recalled. "In fact, we had started
building our own rifle range, and we got our own M-1's and got our own
Mausers and German semi-automatic rifles, and steel helmets. We had
everything." About sixty men guarded the Perry house in rotating shifts,
sleeping in the garage on cots next to the stacks of rifles and shotguns
beside the washing machine. The women in the NAACP organized a "snowball
system" for telephone alerts, since all of their families remained at risk.


"Most important," Williams wrote, "we had a strong representation of
veterans who were militant and didn't scare easily." This resolve, though
genuine, may have contained a certain amount of bluster. In any case, Mabel
Williams did not always share her husband's faith in their capacity to
defend themselves. "Oh, God, we were afraid for our lives," she said of
those times. "The kids were young, but they were both trained to use a gun.
I remember nights when the four of us, me, Rob's father, and the two
boys, we'd sit up all night with our guns, afraid someone would come kill us
while Rob was at Dr. Perry's."?

On October 5, 1957, Catfish Cole's Ku Klux Klan held a huge rally near
Monroe. After the rally, a large, heavily armed Klan motorcade roared out
to Dr. Perry's place, firing their guns at the house and howling at the top
of their lungs. The hooded terrorists met a hail of disciplined gunfire
from Robert Williams and his men, who fired their weapons from behind
sandbag fortifications and earthen entrenchments. Shooting low, they
quickly turned the Klan raid into a complete rout. " Mauney
wouldn't stop them," B. J. Winfield said later, "and he knew they were
coming, because he was in the Klan. When we started firing, they run. We
run them out and they started just crying and going on." The Klan "hauled
it and never did come back," Woodrow Wilson recalled. "The Klans was
low-down people what would do dirty things. But if they found out that you
would do dirty things, too, then they'd let you alone," he said. "We shot
it out with the Klan and repelled their attack," Williams said, "and the
Klan didn't have any more stomach for this type of fight. They stopped
raiding our community." The Monroe Journal blamed the Klan's "robed
assemblies," calling the shootout "an uncivilized incident" that "should be
sufficient grounds to outlaw such provocative assemblies in Union County."
The following day, the Monroe city council held an emergency session and
passed an ordinance banning Ku Klux Klan motorcades.(snip)

Tyson's view of the Battle of Hayes Pond, from the same page as the above:

The rout of Catfish Cole's bedsheet brigade by the Monroe NAACP on October
5, 1957, crushed the evangelist's aspiration to unite the Ku Klux Klan in
the Carolinas under his charismatic leadership. His manly honor in tatters,
Cole retreated from Union County to Robeson County in southeastern North
Carolina to rebuild his following. "Both counties," one observer noted,
"were Catfish Cole's territory." In Robeson County, which had a history of
strong support for the Klan, Cole hoped to rally his forces in a population
divided almost evenly among African Americans, whites, and Lumbee Indians.
"There's about 30,000 half-breeds in Robeson County and we are going to
have a cross burning and scare them up," Cole announced. Asked whether he
intended to use violence to stop the race-mixing in Robeson County, Cole
replied that the guns his Klansmen carried "speak for themselves, and if
they don't, they will." On January 13, 1958, the Klan burned a cross on the
lawn of an Indian woman in the town of St. Pauls as "a warning" because,
Cole claimed, she was "having an affair" with a white man. The cross
burnings continued, with the former carnival barker ranting at each
gathering about the terrible evils of "mongrelization," the loose morals of
Lumbee women, and the manly duties of white men "to fight
enemies anywhere, anytime." As one visitor to Monroe later wrote to a
friend, "Cole was in a particular mad dog fury" because of rumors that Ava
Gardner, eastern North Carolina's own homegrown movie star, was having a
Hollywood affair with Sammy Davis Jr., whom Cole contemptuously referred to
as "that one-eyed nigger."

The climax of the Klan's Robeson County campaign was to be a heavily armed
rally on January 18, 1958, near the small town of Maxton, at which, Cole
predicted, 5,000 Klansmen would remind Indians of "their place" in the
racial order. "He said that, did he?" asked Simeon Oxendine, who had flown
more than thirty missions against the Germans in World War II and now
headed the Lumbee chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. "Well, we'll
just wait and see."

Cole's references to Lumbee women were particularly galling. Robeson County
sheriff Malcolm McLeod visited the grand wizard at his South Carolina home
and "told him that his life would be in danger if he came to Maxton and
made the same speech he'd been making." That Friday night, as a few dozen
Klansmen gathered in a roadside field in darkness lit only by a single
hanging bulb powered by a portable generator, more than five hundred Lumbee
men assembled across the road with rifles and shotguns. The Lumbees fanned
out across the highway to encircle the Klansmen. When Cole began to speak,
a Lumbee dashed up and smashed the light with his rifle barrel. Hundreds of
Indians let out a thunderous whoop and fired their weapons repeatedly into
the air. Only four people were injured, none seriously; all but one were
apparently hit by falling bullets. The Klansmen dropped their guns and
scrambled for their cars, abandoning the unlit cross, their public address
system, and an array of KKK paraphernalia. Magnanimous in victory, the
Lumbees allowed the white supremacists to escape. The war party even helped
push Cole's Cadillac out of the ditch where his wife, Carolyn, had driven
in her panic. The grand wizard himself had abandoned "white womanhood" and
fled on foot into the swamps. Laughing, the Lumbees set fire to the cross,
hanged Catfish Cole in effigy, and had a rollicking victory bash. Draped in
captured Klan regalia, they celebrated into the night. "If the Negroes had
done something like this a long time ago, we wouldn't be bothered with the
KKK," Oxendine said in a remark that kept his Lumbee troops clearly on a
side of the color line different from that of African Americans.(snip)

Robert F. Williams is remembered by very few people these days, but there was
a special about him on PBS recently:

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/negroeswithguns/index.html

Another bunch of non-rich, white, or priveleged men with guns:

The Deacons for Defense

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deacons_for_Defense_and_Justice


There was even a made-for-cable movie about them, with Forest Whitaker (it's on DVD):

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0335034/


So you see, shooting *is* for everyone!

[Xela]

13. Great reply...

Good job,

Xela

[Irreverend IX]

14. Breaking news at this hour!

AP WIRE, DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND

Gun violence took a deadly toll on Democratic Underground last night when yet another of Iverglas's arguments was brutally shot down by an armed Democrat. Gun control advocates on America's most popular progressive political discussion board have been in a state of panic for weeks now, afraid to voice their ideas in public for fear of being mercilessly rebutted by the many self-defense supporters who frequent the forum.

Iverglas and her associates have urged administrators to ban "assault anecdotes:" pieces of evidence supporting gun rights that can be quickly presented and do massive damage to the anti-gun cause.

"Some of the evidence these gun nuts are packing is just insane," said one gun-grabber, speaking on condition of anonymity. "I've heard them citing FBI statistics, talking about how Eleanor Roosevelt owned a revolver, stuff like that. It's just crazy. I mean, last night one of them mentioned that the first gun control measures were part of the Jim Crow laws! That's not fair--no one needs to cite facts that compelling. Guns are evil and that's all there is to it."

Iverglas herself has felt the sting of gun violence all too often. As one of the most fervent supporters of gun restrictions, her posts have been shot full of holes more times than she cares to remember.

"It's utterly appalling," said Iverglas. "I spend upwards of an hour writing and proofreading every post I make, and that doesn't even take into account the time I spend going through people's post histories looking for non-gender-neutral pronouns. And all it takes to rip them apart is one little cut-and-pasted chapter from a civil rights history book. All this spinning and hair-splitting isn't as easy as it looks, you know. No honest person should be able to rebut my arguments so easily."

Long-standing Democratic Underground policy forbids the denial of a poster's progressive politics on the basis of their self-defense views, but gun control advocates are working to push through the Liberal Litmus Test Act nonetheless. Among the act's provisions are a ban on the citation of any gun control statutes from before 1980, total prohibition of the discussion of Switzerland's gun crime statistics and strict controls on references to Gary Kleck's publications.

"Those lunatics are running around blasting us with fully-footnoted studies and all we can do to defend ourselves is make penis jokes," said another anonymous anti-gunner. "The mods need to do something to balance the scales."

In lieu of a legislative response to the verbal barrage from gun owners, some anti-gun posters have opted to guard their minds with bulletproof shields that keep any outside ideas from entering.

"I'm not afraid of those gun-sucking freaks," said long-time gun control advocate Billbuckhead. "No logic or reason can penetrate my mental armor. I'm going to keep posting 'Are Gun Owners Baby-Killing Psychopaths?' polls in General Discussion until I get a majority Yes vote."

[guntard]

15. Oh jaysus . . .

Is there a Best of DU?

[krispos42]

16. Yes, the "DUzy Awards" :-)

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/JeffR

My DUzy count is 8, so far :-)

This week's edition is due very shortly.

I don't know if this will make it... it can be construed as a personal attack. But it's very funny though!

[qdemn7]

17. Ohhhh that is just SO wrong!!!!!

NOT!!!! :toast: :party: :bounce: :wow: :hi: :loveya: :headbang: :yourock: :rofl:

[fightthegoodfightnow]

24. Just Goes to Show Creative Writing

...........is something you have in common with Lynn Cheney. Congratulations

:puke: .:evilgrin: :smoke: :crazy: :silly: :wtf: :argh: :freak: :dunce: :spank: :nuke: :shrug: :rofl: :yoiks:

[Xela]

42. Amazing creativity...

Great work.

Xela

[virginia mountainman]

45. Outstanding!!

:yourock:

[SteveM]

51. Been outta town for 2 weeks, but BOY what a welcome back! Great!

[WWFZD]

59. Thanks for the links, very interesting

reading was found within.
For example: "Williams also filed for a charter from the National Rifle Association (NRA) and formed the Black Guard, an armed group committed to the protection of Monroe’s black population. Members received weapons and physical training from Williams to prepare them to keep the peace and come to the aid of black citizens, whose calls to law enforcement often went unanswered."

But I've often read on this very forum that the NRA is and was comprised of, by and for racist white men? Could it possibly be that the organization simply supports 2A civil rights for all Americans? I'll be.

[Xela]

5. Fabuluous...we should start a pic library...

Some you've seen before:

FDR and Eleanor

[guntard]

6. I'm shocked - SHOCKED - to see guns in the hands . . .

. . . of two of the most revered Democratic Presidents of the last century.

Where did it all go wrong?

[fightthegoodfightnow]

20. Perhaps One Might Have a Different Opinion About Guns if He Were Alive

.........today to talk about them.

After all, JFK was killed by .............one...............or two.....................or three.................depending on who you talk to.

[qdemn7]

22. Uh-huh...

Once again blame the guns, instead of the people who misuse them. Why am I not surprised.

[fightthegoodfightnow]

23. Right............JFK was *KILLED* by a Gun

Thanks for reminding us of how he was killed.

Fortunately, Jim Brady is alive to remind you..........and guess what that right wing fanatic and his wife did...........dedicate their lives to ending gun violence.

But heh.......you keep believing guns have nothing to do with gun violence.

[qdemn7]

27. Gun Violence, Gun Violence, Gun Violence, Gun Violence, Gun Violence,

Just keep repeating that to yourself. Because it's obvious you actually believe it.

And JFK was killed by a man or men, with guns. By human beings. The operative point here which you refuse to acknowledge is that the gun has no mind, no heart, no soul. Thus it is incapable of doing anything without a human misusing it.

[sl8]

32. I must say, that's not very PC

FYI:

The KKK didn't kill blacks, it was that darn rope that was responsible.

Lincoln wasn't killed by John Wilkes Booth, he was killed by a derringer.

Overseers didn't kill slaves, it was them whips and clubs 'twere to blame.

Caesar wasn't killed by Brutus, he was killed by a dagger.

Jesus wasn't killed by the Romans, he was killed by a some wood, some nails, and gravity.

Abel wasn't killed by Cain, he was killed by, well, I'm not sure. I hear that Cain was in the vicinity, but it was probably a rock or a stick or maybe Cain's appendages that were responsible.

[fightthegoodfightnow]

44. YAWN..........

Try killling someone without the instruments used to kill them and my guess is you will be unsuccessful.

I don't want to ban guns, anymore than I want to ban rope, whips, clubs, daggers, wood, nail, or gravity, but to equate a gun with those things is well....naive.

No one opposes responsible gun ownership that includes registration and training.

[iverglas]

60. ah, another stroll down memory lane

among the peaceful tombstones

[guntard]

29. I thought JFK was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald

I must be out of step with the latest theories. Do please inform us, thanks.

And if you have some reason to believe the person firing the rifle for recreation in Vidal's anecdote and photos was someone besides the future 35th President of the United States, I think we should be told!

TIA

[fightthegoodfightnow]

35. Of Course You DId

LOL.

[fightthegoodfightnow]

43. You can't have one without the other

The notion that we should not make cars safer by requiring seat belts, air bags, shatter resistant glass and other safety precautions along with requiring drivers to be trained and familiar with the laws of the road suggest it is you who would rather blame the driver alone rather than holding both the car and the driver accountable for public safety.

[davepc]

7. more proof that shooting "sports" are the purview of the privileged white elite

[Xela]

8. Then nevermind these...

LOL

I guess ideally then we should get some pics of Dems/libs/progs/reds/women/minorities shooting IDPA or IPSC or a big .50 at a range.

Xela

[guntard]

9. Are you serious or trolling?

If I ever see any "privileged white elite" show up at a gun show, I will eat my shoe.

[fightthegoodfightnow]

21. Chewing on the Soles of a Leather Shoe Doesn't Make You Interesting

............but heh............keep defending your right to disclaim being a "privileged white elite" .

I accept the fact you want to claim your heritage as a ...............well................you figure it out.

[guntard]

30. You need to cut back on the ellipses

Not only is it a poor grammatical style, but someday when you really need a period you will find you have used them all up!

[fightthegoodfightnow]

38. Nah..........they give you time to 'think'...........

Nah..........they give you time to 'think'...........and read ....................................SLOWLY.

[SteveM]

52. My heritage is Florida Cracker. Proud of it. Zora Neale Hurston also packed.

[spin]

57. Just who is Zora Neale Hurston ....

Five years ago an extraordinary cache of manuscripts by Zora Neale Hurston, perhaps the most important black female writer of the first half of the 20th century, was discovered in the Library of Congress. Hurston, who was most productive during the 1930's and 1940's, was a student of cultural anthropology and a collector of folk tales. As a novelist and short story writer, she was a chronicler of black life in the rural South, where she grew up.

]Driving her own car through the rural South and toting a gun, Zora Neale Hurston embarked in 1927 on a two-year effort to collect samples of African-American folklore. She was a Barnard College student of anthropology at the time.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/zora_neale_hurston/index.html

Now there was one interesting woman!

[SteveM]

61. Harriet Tubman also packed ...

Hurston was a life-long Republican, the Taft wing at the time. Her last novel, Seraph on the Suwannee <1949>, was about the trials of a white Cracker family in Florida, post-Civil War. I always bring this book up when some of my super race-conscious liberal friends remind me that white folks cannot speak with any real knowledge about black Americans.

Hurston was a great admirer of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Pulitzer for Yearling; Cross-Creek, South Moon Under, etc.), and once visited her on Christmas eve in Alachua County, Florida -- quite a daring move in dem-dar days. She dedicated Seraph to Rawlings.

Tubman is often pictured with a percussion rifle, Hurston is sometimes pictured with a shoulder holster (where it hasn't been brushed out), and Rawlings' old farm house (now a state monument) has a photo of the writer, jauntily dressed in hunting gear, with her dog and her SxS.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

48. The "priveleged white elite" show up at gun shows ....

but they are a different type of gun show. Where the shotguns might have a five-digit price tag. Where the pistol might be an eighteenth century flintlock. Or a seventeenth century French wheel-lock. Where the new rifle has a highly figured Turkish walnut stock, or the metal is engraved with gold inlay.

Not the sort of show that most of us can buy at, but interesting to walk around, or even see some of that stuff on TV.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

47. No, getting pictures in print is the purview of the elite

Having pictures like that in the family album is pretty normal when people live in sparse areas. It only looks alien to people who live in towns or cities.

[guntard]

49. Now it's all gone digital

Flickr

[qdemn7]

10. The very first thing

That stuck me about the first picture, was just how high up on his shoulder that Williams had the rifle. Almost half of the buttstock is exposed.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[friendly_iconoclast]

26. I congratulate you

You got three whole posts in before resorting to a 'compensation' (see post #14) jibe.

You are aware that the District of Columbia flag used in your graphic is derived from the family crest of the most adored "privileged white male" in all of American history,
slaveowner George Washington? I don't know how I'd feel about running around with
a plantation owner's family crest on my license plates if I were an African-American
motorist in D.C.

Are you going to keep the graphic as 'a symbol of D.C. pride' ?

[friendly_iconoclast]

34. Forgot the link to above

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_George_Washington

[fightthegoodfightnow]

36. Here on the Plantation

Before you start lecturing the people of the District of Columbia about their "priviledged symbol' of racism, you might want to give us the right to vote.

We know all too well where the the plantation of America is.

But heh, if that's your argument, you proved nothing more than the fact that US is a nation of 'priviledged white males' because many hold that the design of the US flag came from Washington's family crest.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Flag#First_flag

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

55. You didn't get to vote for Obama?

Have you reported this miscarriage of justice to the election officials?

David

[Recursion]

46. I think it's more embarrassing that the blazonry for it says

"three mullets, gules, fesswise"

I'm not too sure about gules or fesswise, but I'll be damned if I support a man who has even one mullet, let alone three.

[qdemn7]

28. What's worse?

Someone who confuses their gun with their sexual organ? Or someone who wants to take other people's sexual organs away?

[fightthegoodfightnow]

37. What's Worse?

:sarcasm:

Which is worse.......someone killed with a gun to the head or someone thinking that they could jump from a 90 story building?

[qdemn7]

39. Non sequitur

WTF does a 90 story building have to do with anything we have been discussing?

And since you apparently don't respect the Constitution, as in the 2nd Amendment, why should we give you the right to vote under it?

[fightthegoodfightnow]

40. WTF Indeed

WTF indeed.

You seem to think your sexual organ questions are more relevant, but alas, I understand you having questions.

So let me get this right......leaving aside the issue of whether I support YOUR interpretation of the Second Amendment or MY interpretation of the Second Amendment.....my rights are dependent on a document that at the time it was written recognized slavery and measured a man as a fraction and a woman as well....irrelevant?

Get a clue: The GREAT thing about this country is that our Constitution protects us regardless of whether we claim allegiance to this country or the Constitution. I claim both and will spend a lifetime protecting your rights even if you won't do the same for me.

It's a basic tenet of ....here's a BIG word for you......D*E*M*O*C*R*A*C*Y and here's another one.......our R*E*P*U*B*L*I*C*A*N form of government ..... as in the people are represented by their elected officials.

[guntard]

31. Heh

I guess some folks overcompensate for their own bent up sexual frustrations by thinking a gun defines a man.

Oddly, this thread is about JFK, who overcompensated for his own bent up (sic) sexual frustrations by fucking every female in sight.

I'm not sure that guns had much to do with any of this, but it might be illuminating for you to explore your theories in more detail. For example, your obsession with the word "hump," it's double meanings, etc. Please don't let my skepticism stop you!

[fightthegoodfightnow]

41. Sexual Overcompensation and Guns

You write: 'Oddly, this thread is about JFK, who overcompensated for his own bent up (sic) sexual frustrations by fucking every female in sight."

Is *THAT* why you made the post or do you just like making posts about sexually frustrated men holding guns? About JFK indeed.....right...<that's sarcasm in case it's over your head>....LOL.

[SteveM]

53. "...bent up (sic)"? Havn't you heard of the man from Kent?

[guntard]

54. What?

[SteveM]

56. You have heard of the man from Kent?...

who's dick was so long it was bent?

To save him the trouble
He folded it double
So instead of coming
He went. (anon)

Ah, Miami in '58. Our family vacationed there in August (off-season: cheap) and paid $8 a night at the Royal Palm Hotel on Collins; beach-side room, no a.c., no t.v., radio in the wall, 6th floor window open and the sea breeze wafting through at night. We walked to Wolfies (sp?) in the morning and ate French toast. That fall, back up state in Gainesville, I got to shoot at my first squirrel with my Dad's old H&R .22 bolt action w/ peep (my Mom bought it for him during WW II for $5), all within view of the Florida Field (Gators' "Swamp") stadium press box, 2 miles distant.

So thankful for my upbringing.