Glad you liked it Ken--I think it's an existential question: why do Americans feel so unsafe? Answer: because increasingly, the institutions that have cared for them have ceased to do so, whether that is employers, the government, the Church, schools....the perpetuation of what my colleague Nancy Fraser calls "cannibal capitalism"--going after ordinary people's well-being in order to funnel profits to the top is a big part of that. But so, ironically, is Republicans's increasingly strident insistence that we all take care of ourselves. A longer comvo--to be had at Freewind!
The idea of insurrection has been very niche until recently, confined to white supremacist and militia groups, and it only became more open and general on the right after 2016. Up until that point hte not-so-hidden agenda was profits. Gun industry profits have expanded dramatically in the past 20 years or so
Well, right--and with other ways of killing people, fighting back is an effective option. But as you point out correctly in your other comment, it isn't about the facts of the case anyway.
Wow.... Disgusting take... BTW... I'm a Black, Progressive, Anti-interventionist, pro gun restrictionist, 50 year Chicago resident, Community control of police advocate..... And your pure partisan take is DISGUSTING
Ignoring that the uk has 4-10x the violent crime rate of even the us inflated statistics, that doesn’t work.
If you were to take out the “colorful areas” of LA, NY, Chicago, and Baltimore from crime stats, the us would be ranked about the 5th safest country of all 200 in the world.
So a random handgun and a hunting rifle is “made for war?” Why then do you always suicidally mock your opponents that you have drone bombs and missiles?
Were any Conservative to be hit, your house a mile away would be too.
Not to mention you can’t oppress people with bombs, and no one wants to be the totalitarian leader of ash (not to mention if biden wanted to stop a “counter-revolution” with nuclear bombs he would be caught in the blast too) you need choke points and soldiers on the ground to do that.
You have simply come to the realization of what “claire” has yet to: the “revolution” will never stop until stopped, even what you most hold dear as a “progressive” will be under the “revolution”s boot before long.
Superb. Thank you Claire. I think the way you describe the worldview of 2A proponents is spot on: evil lurks around every corner, so defend (with a gun) or die.
What should we say to those with that worldview? (I ask in a genuine way; I don't know the answer.) Perhaps we can say that people around the world have the same feelings. Some more than others, but we all have them. Fear of evil. It must be universal. But when you have fewer guns, and when there are strict rules about the guns that people do have, fewer people are hurt or killed when evil does occur. You're safer, and can be less afraid. Maybe you can learn other techniques for avoiding or defending against evil. And feel even safer, and even less afraid.
One thing is for sure. If you have this worldview and you arm yourself, you (and we) are not safer. We are less safe. And will be more afraid.
No, guns cannot act on their own. you clearly have no problem with the murder though, you commit enough of those in your daily life far worse than any committed in question here. Nor are you particularly ashamed of being the driving rhetorical force behind inspiring your fellow madmen to murder in desperate search for more “post-birth abortions” for you to “offer” the devil at midnight.
your only problem is that an armed populace can far more easily stop the “revolution” you fantasize about.
I leave you instead with three questions:
1) if you declare the most innocent as “guilty” of a capital crime, when what implicitly happens to you who are most guilty of all evil?
2) are you surplus population and how do you know?
3) why did even greater smugness and ignorance than your own not save ANY other “comrade” throughout ALL History from being liquidated the SECOND your “revolution” was over?
I don’t expect you to answer it, nor will I read it if you do, but don’t worry because then rest of your life will more than clearly say it for you.
Just wondering if you think there's a "hidden" agenda in the way gun rights politicians and groups support gun laws? It's almost like they are not so much for gun rights as they are attempting to arm their supporters for a coming insurrection.
this type of projection is ridiculous considering just days before and after your shooting (which you consider a religion event against Christians) you were championing “trans” owning guns, AND boosting their posts openly threatening to murder more Christians.
In other words, you know deep down what you are doing despite all your dissociation, and you really do feel bad about it. What matters though is instead of trying to Redeem yourself you only double down.
Contrition, Conversion, Confession, Penance, Repentance. death, Judgement, Heaven, or hell. PERIOD. END OF.
So what do we need to do to reduce gun violence? I was thinking about what the Israeli population just accomplished in protests against changes to the justice system. They did it by pulling together key institutions. Per the NY Times "That opposition has gained momentum because it unites influential parts of Israeli society: universities, unions and the reservists who play a key role in the military. The backing of such organizations is often the difference between successful and failed protest movements. ...Much of life in Israel came to a halt yesterday: Hospitals stopped providing nonemergency care, planes were grounded at the country’s main airport, and malls and banks closed. The disruptions were part of an escalation in protests against the government’s proposed judicial overhaul, which has plunged Israel into one of its gravest political crises ever." We have hardly made any progress on gun control and children keep dying. I'm just wondering if anyone has talked about trying something like the above? I know it's the Republicans who support the NRA so not sure what a mass protest would look like but we have to try something different.
Protests are one thing--voting is another. There is a very small part of the population that believes in unrestricted gun ownership, and as on other culture war issues--abortion is another good one--because an extremist base vote in primaries, the candidates all commit to extremism too. Getting voters activated in choosing common sense reform candidates would be a start. One differnece between Israel and the United States is that their Parliamentary system can actually respond to unrest on that scale--our system only responds to voting on a regular cycle.
It is a feature and not a bug that concentrated foreign power (in this case your demon “gods” and their banking institutions) filtered down through localized “useful idiots” falsely-promised that they will “be like gods” (that’s you) cannot change this country overnight.
As I mentioned earlier, most evil one, I would not be so happy to institute a means for your “revolution” to be expedited, considering what your masters will do to you the moment you are no longer needed as a local proxy anymore.
As for the rest:
“abortion” is the worst sin That Cries To Heaven For Vengeance, worst satanic ritual of all, worst sin of all, worst evil of all. equal to cain for Martyring Abel, there is no greater evil and nothing incurs a greater p*nishment.
there have been 2,500,000,000+ (2.5 BILLION) worldwide since 1970 that I know of, and you are not only guilty of each and every one, but you are fully and totally paying for each and every one by your complicit support.
for each sin That Cries To Heaven For Vengeance you get special punishment in h*ll worse than all else before it combined, and a bl**d price to be paid on earth even if you Repent. paid in full, individually with no limit for all Eternity and on earth. also causes immediate demonic p*ss*ssion and invites upon you a demon whose whole “thing” is to push (or try to force) you towards s*c*de before you can Repent.
also the ONLY thing evil enough to get the devil’s attention which it does every time. this is why you panic as it goes away as your master has gone silent and no matter how many Babies you “sacrifice” he won’t show back up. your fear is noted, what comes next for you is even more noted.
I am Ready and waiting for you to be Judged. Are you?
We are sadly waiting for a prominent Republican to say enough is enough, this problem is so grave that Patriotic Americans must lay down their guns and get a new hobby or interest. Unfortunately, we will wait a long time for this.
you will never get it, because your “revolution” will never come. Therefore no need to fantasize about disarming the people who will systematically stop you… again.
you were never taught this, but the entire ussr faced a constant stream of counter-revolution, and being a party member was an eventual death sentence if the counter-revolution knew who and where you were.
you may have an international banking cartel on your side.
you may have millions of disposable, easily-duped, cluster-b proxies on the ground; in fact you are one, just not fighting fit.
you may even have every demon in hell on your side.
There are two HUGE problems:
1) God is on our side, so is His Church.
2) you are incompetent, spiteful mutants and we are not.
Even a singular, weakest Angel could be done with you and your “gods” in an instant should you pose any actual threat. You would have far less chance against even the smallest Saint. Not to mention your every thought and action can only be allowed with the explicit Permission of your supposed enemy: God.
If you doubt anything I say here, I will remind you that you were allowed to be born here instead of directly in hell to give you this one chance to Repent. I will also remind you that you would be ashamed if you heard of God or not, and that Shame is The Natural Response to you doing the unnatural.
Unable to do anything useful as God would have preferred, he found an alternative use for you as a reprobate; which when you boil it down to its most base components (even more Fundamental than the sin usually referred to by the term), a reprobate is just a defective Human repurposed into a training dummy for The Faithful.
If for a moment you even believe you are “winning,” it’s because the training dummy God Requires The Faithful To Overcome needs to be stronger.
I agree that the core problem is the belief in a Hobbesian world. I call this the belief “Only One Can Live” in my book Beyond Doer and Done To. How do such people become able to imagine a cooperative world where the Other is not a threat? What about solidarity? We also might consider the end of labor unions and Farm & Labor parties (including in Texas) to have played a role in reversion to individual self-protection. Why is New England (like Canada) so much less disposed toward gun culture? How does masculine domination figure in? It is important to analyze what militates against belief in violent rugged individualism.
Horrific. Heartbreaking. My first thought when I read the quote from the guy who said he would have used a knife if he couldn’t find a gun was to suggest he check out stats from Great Britain, or any country with fewer guns. But then I remembered what a friend with far right parents told me: you can’t change their minds with facts, because they didn’t acquire their opinions and beliefs through facts. They came to them through emotions. So, this is always our (the Dems’) problem. Just think about Al Gore with his climate change chart. And therefore, we really need to figure out how to reach people by using emotional, not rational, arguments. We need Don Draper to channel William Barber. Or something. To help people move on a gut level, from that dark place into the light. To render empathy cool. Maybe that’s a prerequisite for folks to consider facts in a new way, to be open to them? The people who study how people come to know what they think they know and how they can come to change their minds may have a handle on some of this. I may be nuts, but I also know more factoids and stats are going to get us absolutely no place.
Oh, “joy,” our actually mentally ill, actually schizophrenic patient here is trying to use an old soviet tactic of marking enemies of the “revolution” for death with false accusations of mental illness.
your curses are returned back to whence they came with A St Michael Prayer and A St Benedict Prayer.
Now, why do you emote that Parents will not pay you back for what you have done? Sure they are in denial now, but they won’t be for long.
another excellent article Claire.
Ann B
Really good, Claire -- see's through all the attempts to turn attention away from guns. Thanks for publishing.
Glad you liked it Ken--I think it's an existential question: why do Americans feel so unsafe? Answer: because increasingly, the institutions that have cared for them have ceased to do so, whether that is employers, the government, the Church, schools....the perpetuation of what my colleague Nancy Fraser calls "cannibal capitalism"--going after ordinary people's well-being in order to funnel profits to the top is a big part of that. But so, ironically, is Republicans's increasingly strident insistence that we all take care of ourselves. A longer comvo--to be had at Freewind!
The idea of insurrection has been very niche until recently, confined to white supremacist and militia groups, and it only became more open and general on the right after 2016. Up until that point hte not-so-hidden agenda was profits. Gun industry profits have expanded dramatically in the past 20 years or so
Well, right--and with other ways of killing people, fighting back is an effective option. But as you point out correctly in your other comment, it isn't about the facts of the case anyway.
Wow.... Disgusting take... BTW... I'm a Black, Progressive, Anti-interventionist, pro gun restrictionist, 50 year Chicago resident, Community control of police advocate..... And your pure partisan take is DISGUSTING
Tell me why.
There is no way you actually believe Guns will stop people who want to kill or commit crimes from doing so..!
No, I don't: did you read the essay?
It will stop some. It’s harder to kill a person with a knife than a weapon made for war.
Ignoring that the uk has 4-10x the violent crime rate of even the us inflated statistics, that doesn’t work.
If you were to take out the “colorful areas” of LA, NY, Chicago, and Baltimore from crime stats, the us would be ranked about the 5th safest country of all 200 in the world.
So a random handgun and a hunting rifle is “made for war?” Why then do you always suicidally mock your opponents that you have drone bombs and missiles?
Were any Conservative to be hit, your house a mile away would be too.
Not to mention you can’t oppress people with bombs, and no one wants to be the totalitarian leader of ash (not to mention if biden wanted to stop a “counter-revolution” with nuclear bombs he would be caught in the blast too) you need choke points and soldiers on the ground to do that.
You have simply come to the realization of what “claire” has yet to: the “revolution” will never stop until stopped, even what you most hold dear as a “progressive” will be under the “revolution”s boot before long.
Superb. Thank you Claire. I think the way you describe the worldview of 2A proponents is spot on: evil lurks around every corner, so defend (with a gun) or die.
What should we say to those with that worldview? (I ask in a genuine way; I don't know the answer.) Perhaps we can say that people around the world have the same feelings. Some more than others, but we all have them. Fear of evil. It must be universal. But when you have fewer guns, and when there are strict rules about the guns that people do have, fewer people are hurt or killed when evil does occur. You're safer, and can be less afraid. Maybe you can learn other techniques for avoiding or defending against evil. And feel even safer, and even less afraid.
One thing is for sure. If you have this worldview and you arm yourself, you (and we) are not safer. We are less safe. And will be more afraid.
No, guns cannot act on their own. you clearly have no problem with the murder though, you commit enough of those in your daily life far worse than any committed in question here. Nor are you particularly ashamed of being the driving rhetorical force behind inspiring your fellow madmen to murder in desperate search for more “post-birth abortions” for you to “offer” the devil at midnight.
your only problem is that an armed populace can far more easily stop the “revolution” you fantasize about.
I leave you instead with three questions:
1) if you declare the most innocent as “guilty” of a capital crime, when what implicitly happens to you who are most guilty of all evil?
2) are you surplus population and how do you know?
3) why did even greater smugness and ignorance than your own not save ANY other “comrade” throughout ALL History from being liquidated the SECOND your “revolution” was over?
I don’t expect you to answer it, nor will I read it if you do, but don’t worry because then rest of your life will more than clearly say it for you.
Just wondering if you think there's a "hidden" agenda in the way gun rights politicians and groups support gun laws? It's almost like they are not so much for gun rights as they are attempting to arm their supporters for a coming insurrection.
this type of projection is ridiculous considering just days before and after your shooting (which you consider a religion event against Christians) you were championing “trans” owning guns, AND boosting their posts openly threatening to murder more Christians.
In other words, you know deep down what you are doing despite all your dissociation, and you really do feel bad about it. What matters though is instead of trying to Redeem yourself you only double down.
Contrition, Conversion, Confession, Penance, Repentance. death, Judgement, Heaven, or hell. PERIOD. END OF.
So what do we need to do to reduce gun violence? I was thinking about what the Israeli population just accomplished in protests against changes to the justice system. They did it by pulling together key institutions. Per the NY Times "That opposition has gained momentum because it unites influential parts of Israeli society: universities, unions and the reservists who play a key role in the military. The backing of such organizations is often the difference between successful and failed protest movements. ...Much of life in Israel came to a halt yesterday: Hospitals stopped providing nonemergency care, planes were grounded at the country’s main airport, and malls and banks closed. The disruptions were part of an escalation in protests against the government’s proposed judicial overhaul, which has plunged Israel into one of its gravest political crises ever." We have hardly made any progress on gun control and children keep dying. I'm just wondering if anyone has talked about trying something like the above? I know it's the Republicans who support the NRA so not sure what a mass protest would look like but we have to try something different.
Protests are one thing--voting is another. There is a very small part of the population that believes in unrestricted gun ownership, and as on other culture war issues--abortion is another good one--because an extremist base vote in primaries, the candidates all commit to extremism too. Getting voters activated in choosing common sense reform candidates would be a start. One differnece between Israel and the United States is that their Parliamentary system can actually respond to unrest on that scale--our system only responds to voting on a regular cycle.
It is a feature and not a bug that concentrated foreign power (in this case your demon “gods” and their banking institutions) filtered down through localized “useful idiots” falsely-promised that they will “be like gods” (that’s you) cannot change this country overnight.
As I mentioned earlier, most evil one, I would not be so happy to institute a means for your “revolution” to be expedited, considering what your masters will do to you the moment you are no longer needed as a local proxy anymore.
As for the rest:
“abortion” is the worst sin That Cries To Heaven For Vengeance, worst satanic ritual of all, worst sin of all, worst evil of all. equal to cain for Martyring Abel, there is no greater evil and nothing incurs a greater p*nishment.
there have been 2,500,000,000+ (2.5 BILLION) worldwide since 1970 that I know of, and you are not only guilty of each and every one, but you are fully and totally paying for each and every one by your complicit support.
for each sin That Cries To Heaven For Vengeance you get special punishment in h*ll worse than all else before it combined, and a bl**d price to be paid on earth even if you Repent. paid in full, individually with no limit for all Eternity and on earth. also causes immediate demonic p*ss*ssion and invites upon you a demon whose whole “thing” is to push (or try to force) you towards s*c*de before you can Repent.
also the ONLY thing evil enough to get the devil’s attention which it does every time. this is why you panic as it goes away as your master has gone silent and no matter how many Babies you “sacrifice” he won’t show back up. your fear is noted, what comes next for you is even more noted.
I am Ready and waiting for you to be Judged. Are you?
A color “revolution” is not an organic thing.
We are sadly waiting for a prominent Republican to say enough is enough, this problem is so grave that Patriotic Americans must lay down their guns and get a new hobby or interest. Unfortunately, we will wait a long time for this.
you will never get it, because your “revolution” will never come. Therefore no need to fantasize about disarming the people who will systematically stop you… again.
you were never taught this, but the entire ussr faced a constant stream of counter-revolution, and being a party member was an eventual death sentence if the counter-revolution knew who and where you were.
you may have an international banking cartel on your side.
you may have millions of disposable, easily-duped, cluster-b proxies on the ground; in fact you are one, just not fighting fit.
you may even have every demon in hell on your side.
There are two HUGE problems:
1) God is on our side, so is His Church.
2) you are incompetent, spiteful mutants and we are not.
Even a singular, weakest Angel could be done with you and your “gods” in an instant should you pose any actual threat. You would have far less chance against even the smallest Saint. Not to mention your every thought and action can only be allowed with the explicit Permission of your supposed enemy: God.
If you doubt anything I say here, I will remind you that you were allowed to be born here instead of directly in hell to give you this one chance to Repent. I will also remind you that you would be ashamed if you heard of God or not, and that Shame is The Natural Response to you doing the unnatural.
Unable to do anything useful as God would have preferred, he found an alternative use for you as a reprobate; which when you boil it down to its most base components (even more Fundamental than the sin usually referred to by the term), a reprobate is just a defective Human repurposed into a training dummy for The Faithful.
If for a moment you even believe you are “winning,” it’s because the training dummy God Requires The Faithful To Overcome needs to be stronger.
Very good and thoughtful article, thank you!
I agree that the core problem is the belief in a Hobbesian world. I call this the belief “Only One Can Live” in my book Beyond Doer and Done To. How do such people become able to imagine a cooperative world where the Other is not a threat? What about solidarity? We also might consider the end of labor unions and Farm & Labor parties (including in Texas) to have played a role in reversion to individual self-protection. Why is New England (like Canada) so much less disposed toward gun culture? How does masculine domination figure in? It is important to analyze what militates against belief in violent rugged individualism.
Horrific. Heartbreaking. My first thought when I read the quote from the guy who said he would have used a knife if he couldn’t find a gun was to suggest he check out stats from Great Britain, or any country with fewer guns. But then I remembered what a friend with far right parents told me: you can’t change their minds with facts, because they didn’t acquire their opinions and beliefs through facts. They came to them through emotions. So, this is always our (the Dems’) problem. Just think about Al Gore with his climate change chart. And therefore, we really need to figure out how to reach people by using emotional, not rational, arguments. We need Don Draper to channel William Barber. Or something. To help people move on a gut level, from that dark place into the light. To render empathy cool. Maybe that’s a prerequisite for folks to consider facts in a new way, to be open to them? The people who study how people come to know what they think they know and how they can come to change their minds may have a handle on some of this. I may be nuts, but I also know more factoids and stats are going to get us absolutely no place.
The simple fact is that these people love their guns more than they love your children. More than they love their children, actually.
Because you know these attacks try to target soft, blue-areas in red states?
For what you do to our Children you will be paid back in full, I promise most irredeemable monster.
Please go back on whatever medication you belong on
Oh, “joy,” our actually mentally ill, actually schizophrenic patient here is trying to use an old soviet tactic of marking enemies of the “revolution” for death with false accusations of mental illness.
your curses are returned back to whence they came with A St Michael Prayer and A St Benedict Prayer.
Now, why do you emote that Parents will not pay you back for what you have done? Sure they are in denial now, but they won’t be for long.