I recommend the story in The New York Times today about the gun industry's aggressive marketing of firearms (including assault weapons) to children, in the hope that the industry's customer base won't continue to shrink. The story is infuriating. However, there is one moment of absurdity. Times reporter Mike McIntire speaks to Andy Fink, editor of a magazine called Junior Shooters:
In an interview, Mr. Fink elaborated. Semiautomatic firearms are actually not weapons, he said, unless someone chooses to hurt another person with them, and their image has been unfairly tainted by the news media. There is no legitimate reason children should not learn to safely use an AR-15 for recreation, he said.Wow -- if a firearm isn't being aimed at a person, it's not a weapon. How post-modern!
"They're a tool, not any different than a car or a baseball bat," Mr. Fink said. "It's no different than a junior shooting a .22 or a shotgun. The difference is in the perception of the viewer."
Maybe this notion will work its way into our legal system.
You're a local pol and you get caught receiving a cash bribe? Tell the authorities that since you haven't actually spent the money on a Porsche yet, it's not really a bribe! It's just a bunch of paper!
The DEA swoops down on your boat and finds a kilo of cocaine? Hey, it's not an illegal drug -- it's not actually being snorted! It's a large quantity of a benign powdered chemical!
You build a car bomb and drive it to Times Square, but you're stopped before you can set it off? Hey, as long as you haven't actually detonated it, it's ... um, a science project! Yeah, that's the ticket!
Brilliant!
It's all a marketing ploy, all of this terra terra terra terra all the time shit, this be afraid be afraid be very afraid: Usama binDead since Dec2001 and his gamg of born-again gay muslim mexican liberals are comin' t'getcha! Oh yeah, gonna rape all the (white) women and steal all jobs... er, guns. All just a marketing ploy to sell guns to pussies. To cowards. To candy-asses.
ReplyDeleteThat pillow over my girlfriends face?
ReplyDeleteWell, Officer, she was bitching about me hogging the blanket, so I figured I'd share a pillow, too.
These idiots need to admit that guns have only one purpose - to shoot a metal object at a very high speed, to use against an animal or person.
Sure, I could use a pillow, or a hammer, or a screwdriver, to kill someone.
But that's NOT what their primary use is.
And, if you decide to hammer a nail with a loaded weapon, you'll have earned your place in The Darwin Award Hall of Fame.
Yeah, I've never been a hundred per cent clear on what uses firearms have other than as, uh, arms. Weapons. I mean, you can use them on the firing range. And...
ReplyDeleteI'm drawing a blank. Even if you're not using it explicitly lethally, it's still being used as a weapon. To impair or at least intimidate someone. I suppose way, way down on the list is its use as a totem to make its holder feel badass.
But come on. It is very easy to identify the use of a car or a baseball bat. What is even supposed to be the non-weapon primary use of firearms?
On a fucking Army base. Our fucking tax dollars at work. Fuck me! Fuck you, you fucking DoD!
ReplyDeleteOh, and by the way. A bullet is not a bullet. It's just a pointed piece of lead or steal wearing a brass pair of pants until it passes through someone's head.
ReplyDeleteVery crankily yours,
The New York Crank
ReplyDeleteSteve,
Hyperbole and sarcasm aside fire arms *are* just tools as he says.
They are useful for those people who raise live stock/ fowls but have a problem with feral animals.
Also when putting down large numbers of stock damaged beyond reasonable recovery from disasters famine, fire or even disease.Of that there is no doubt. That is clearly a NEED.(must have)
on the other side there are many who derive pleasure from target shooting/competition. That is a WANT.(desire ..emotional)
As for 'hunting' for pleasure. Killing some thing for no useful purpose is either a learned activity or something of concern to a psychiatrist particularly if it manifests as an obsession or a NEED!
There is NO SUBSTANTIVE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE that Hunting is a primal instinct.
It is simply emotionalised spin confusing the primal need to survive with the methodology.(standard Conservative 'associative spin'.)
in all but the first case multiple shot fire arms are clearly superfluous/unnecessary to the task. I'd challenge anyone to demonstrate how any of the wants even hunting can't be done with a single shot then reload fire arm.
Having established the two different reasons and the appropriate fire arm for the task.
We then ask what is the problem we're trying to solve?
It is stated that 3% of firearm killings (murders) are with semi automatic firearms so why the fuss. The answer is WHO and HOW many are killed in each incident?
As I've said before I'd rather that there are NO MURDERS. However, in the real world there are. The question then becomes how do we reduce the number of the deaths of mass innocents? (the who and how many)
The remaining question is who are the people committing these mass killing etc. By and large they are people who psychologically shouldn't have access to fire arms period even if it's just a tool. by analogy who is at fault if a parent allows a child under the age of ten (the average age of spacial judgement) to have a chain saw or circular saw; Or under 16 the (average legal age of clear cognitive understanding of right or wrong... a minor) the above tools or drive a vehicle; on their own?
Or a mentally challenged or psychologically unstable child?
Well both are all just tools!
The answer is common sense is the person using the tool and the different degrees of deadliness of the same. A vehicle can easily kill more people at once than a circular or chainsaw (Texas excluded but that IS Texas everythung is diff'rent there)
Part 2
ReplyDeleteOne doesn't get a car licence then start driving 32-38 wheelers at 16 yo. (“road trains”... powerful 18 wheelers with 3 dog trailers ...used for hauling stock in the Australian outback).
it would be a very rare child/very young adult (given that frontal cortex development(judgement area of the brain)isn't , on average fully mature until 24-26 YO who would actually be allowed to captain/fly a loaded Jumbo Jet.
Common sense on average dictates there people should have limited if not no access to firearms Period.
Likewise, the same logic that applies to vehicle licences the would be owner should have to PROVE they are appropriate to drive and have an appropriate firearm.
As with vehicles In most countries the vehicle MUST be registered and transfer duly reported.
Insurance insists that the vehicle is appropriately stored so why not firearms. If you have a history of dangerous behaviour you can be refused a licence. There is noting new there, no new principles.
So having established the clear logic we have to ask why the hostility?
Answer the firearm manufacturers are part of the Military Manufacturing Complex (MMC) and they are (Feral/Vulture) Capitalists who hold the notion that they have the RIGHT to make money anyway they can.
Why their support? Well Bears is right the manufacturers have sold the less mentally agile and therefore more prone to faux fear, the 'associative spin' equating their (manufacturer's assumed rights) with the firearm owners rights by twisting the intended meaning of the 2nd amendment. Also by associating fire arms with defence personal and public.
They have been very successful in both this and neutering both the Department whose job it is to control firearm and the 20 or so laws that exist to that end. This they've done by corrupting the political system and by strategically placing their (MMC) factories in locations where they constitute a large local employment supplier. This in turn means the locals are more worried about their ass than some 'liberal idea of peace and love' . Finally which elected representative is going to be seen as voting for UNEMPLOYMENT in their electorate ...Oh yes there are reps who lobby for a factory and funds in their electorate .
All this leads me to the conclusion that playing Whack Em O with the the gun nuts and the manufacturers stooges is exactly what they want. If I was leading the firearm control I'd go for the 'head or heart shot' not the legs. The latter need more bullets for the kill and isn't as reliable as the head or heart shot.
Oh poo.
ReplyDeleteI forgot my final line. fire arms are a tool but what concerns most people is the tool at the trigger end. it seems to me that the puppet campaign simply heightens this concern.