Blogs Dec 17, 2012 at 6:54 am

Comments

1
Conservatives have a lot of myths about the Old West, starting with the gun thing but also including the "you built that" mythos of radical individual effort. Even Laura Ingalls Wilder's daughter Rose was guilty of this, (for instance) editing all mentions of Pa Ingalls' government subsidy checks out of her mother's manuscripts. Rose Wilder Lane went on to be one of the founders of the Libertarian movement and a friend to Ayn Rand. Seems inevitable.
2
Guns are not the problem. They need to be guided by a person to do damage.

Neglectful parents who (to their benefit) didn't learn how to model constructive and pro-social behavior for their children are a dangerous, growing phenomenon in our society.

Who's regulating/monitoring parenting skills? Because we become parents doesn't give us a "free ticket" from having mental health and interpersonal communication issues which need attention.

Metaphoric to a person who seeks to acquire a gun - a parent who is not "qualified" (has no "background check" or monitoring done for parenting/communication skills) is potentially very dangerous. Further, parents "wrap their hands around" a child, guide/"aim" their direction, and, ultimately, pull the trigger.

What we really need to give our attention to is not the gun, but who's behind the trigger?
3
@2 while it is true that 'guns don't kill people' in the literal sense, it is also true that the easy access to guns, their efficiency for their designed purpose (killing) and the culture that glorifies their use and promotes revenge fantasies all contribute to these events. And contrary to popular belief, people are no more or less irresponsible in raising their children then they ever were. Comparing the raising of children to gun ownership is the height of absurdity.
4
um, if guns don't kill people, people kill people, I guess we can save money by removing all guns from the us army. riiiight?

btw back in the 19th century many states had as they have today, an expressly "individual right to bear arms for self defense"....so then we invented the revolver. interestingly, TEXAS had no problem BANNING the revolver and the court of texas upheld this against a state right to bear arms challenge, pointing out that despit esuch an individual right to bear arms, it's crazy to suggest a legislature can't decide WHICH arms one is allowed to have. this logic was repeated in tennessee vis a vis the bowie knife and in many other 19th centuy decisions. all this folderol by scalia about following original intent is usually just a smokescreen for right wingers who too often ignore and don't follow original intent; these "individual" right to bear arms state constitutions also indicate the insertion of the word "individual" was deemed necessary to DISTINGUISH the state right to bear arms from the one in the USA constitution which does not have the word "individual" in it, so if you used normal legal reasoning, that would mean Heller is wrongly decided and the well regulated militia clause does mean there's no individual right to bear arms. I mean, they could have said "individual" like many states did, but they didn't, QED no individual right to bear arms. but anyway even conceding such an individual rights, of course it's not unlimited.....thus the power of the "we can ban private owneship of nukes" argument. we ban n;ukes, tanks, bazookas in your home, why not bushmasters? gun lovers got no answer, just more lies.
6
Here's some additional backstory on guns in America: Gundamentalist. Interesting that this word has been around and reinvented several times in the more than 80 years of its known published existence. All with good reason, and for the same r…
7
@1, good point. The settlement of the West was a wholly-subsidized endeavor, and not just in the "Wild" period. During its early statehood, Arizona (the most Republican of states) received more than $20 of federal largesse for every dollar it paid in taxes. THAT'S what made the West come alive.

And in the Wild West, it wasn't handguns or rifles that brought white civilization, it was white civilization -- teachers, pianos, shoe stores and groceries and town doctors and government offices.
8
I loved this podcast. I support the trade in your guns for a token as discussed.
9
@1, Are you sure Pa Ingalls got a government subsidy check? We know he got a free quarter section due to the Homestead Act.
10
Too bad nobody at the school had a gun or the shooter may have been stymied like the one down in Oregon last week. http://www.kgw.com/news/Clackamas-man-ar…

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