Wasn't there a Million Mom March or something this weekend?

Checked on all the major news websites (CNN, MSNBC, FauX) - nothing.

Did anybody here go?

Kinda weird how they chose to use a four year old photo for a report on this past weekend’s event, eh?

All of the photo’s I’ve seen of the original MMM are in black and white!

there are plenty of color pictures...

For that matter, there's coverage everywhere. And of course, there are lots of right wing shitholes like the free republic gloating that the march was smaller than expected...

Guess right wing fuckwits have to take what small victories they can get....even if it comes at the expense of their fellow citizens' lives.

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but it's nice to see gun nut lies continue unabated.

MrBenchley, for your sake I hope you don't often fall asleep in front of the TV in the evening. I hear one of the "oldies" channels is going to start running the old Hogan's Heroes series.

We wouldn't want you to wake up to the ominous visage of Colonel Klink or General Burkhalter or Sergeant Schultz and have your whole day ruined.



Edited to use a smaller image.

I am sure that the story is not as simplistic as the zealot who made that "poster" presents it. Fuck him. He is an asshole.

Do you mean the guy the took the actual photos or the individual that added the text between them? I'm sure you don't mean me since I was simply "checking the web" as Mr. B suggested.

Your pulling up that poster was a bit "provocative", I would add.

is going to stop another holocaust, than you haven't been paying attention. States laugh at your pathetic weaponry, piss poor tactics, and guerilla techniques. I'm pro gun rights, but thats just a weak argument. The simple fact is any halfway decent army can exterminate a people if they so choose.

n/t

Hence the lack of media coverage.

...that for each person who showed up there may be a thousand who share their opinion, it IS signifigant.

And with so few counter-demonstrators, perhaps the pro-gun position is losing its punch....

...and that's how they arrived at "Million"?

Newspaper editors know that if they receive X number of letters advocating a particular positiotn that it represents Y number of their readers. And radio station opertors know that each caller they get to their talk shows represents a certain number of their audience.

I believe the "Million" all goes back to Louis Farrakhan's "Million Man March" - any time there's a call for people to assemble in Washington, the "Million" word is used in the title.

But when you consider that last weekend's pro-choice march drew a half-million participants (comparted to only 100 pro-gun demonstrators this weekend), perhaps abortion rights are far more important to the American people than gun rights.

Probably better than a million. I was there. Thats a real big flash mob. Somthing large enough to change policy in washington.

The "Million" Mom March was what 5,000 give or take. That would fit into a mid-sized Mega Church. 100 counter deminstrators, thats only half the number of misagnomigists at the MWL. Its not the number of counter demonstators but the ratio to the protesters. Gun control simply doesn't have political legs.

If gun control propoents (Brady Bunch, VPC) would drop the hysteria generation it would be acctualy possible to disucss the isusees.

I have said this a few times in the past but an "assault weapon" is a linguistical construct.

How many people showed up at the MMM'04? How many people showed up at the NRA National Convention in 2004? Multiply both numbers by 1,000 to see which group is more powerful...what's the result?

Because people have made a conscious decision to support an organization by deciding to join. The rule applies to spontaneous displays of support, such as attending demonstrations, writing letters to the editor, or phoning in to talk radio to discuss a particular topic.

Think back to how many anti-war demonstrators have shown up in DC. Compare that to the handsful of Freepers who have been there guarding their Porta Potties.

That's not exactly a "spontaneous display of support."

...it's different than a convention.

Could it be because you're pulling the "rule of thumb" and it's "exceptions" out of your proverbial ass? ;)

If you make the rules, and can change them at will, you'll win every argument, simply by altering the rules to deal with any argument, no matter how valid.

So all in all, it was an insignificant event.
Hence the lack of media coverage.

What the US corporate media chooses to cover being so closely related to what is "significant", and all. I mean, I make sure to gauge *my* assessment of world events by how much air time CNN devotes to it. (Poor me, I don't receive Fox news.)

One might imagine that the media's attention was kinda elsewhere in the last few days, if one decided to think about it.

I haven't even noticed any "abducted blonde schoolgirl" / "murdered fetus" / "abusing/abused celebrity" stories on CNN this last little while ...

.

with murdering his g/f's twin fetuses or the woman who was charged with murdering her abusive husband and keeping his remains in the spare bedroom for a year.

Dangit, they're trying... gotta give 'em credit for trying...


</sarcasm>

n/t

Each of the Moms represented 400 people. That's how they arrived at "Million."

C-Span recorded it and played it @2 a.m. eastern this morning.

A gun enthusiast here at work called it the "million whore march". He is not supporting the AWB I guess :headbang:

sucking a lot of oxygen out of the air. It's hard to compate with a sexy torture scandal involving children. The good nes is that Kerry is pulling away from Bush in battleground states and so a stronger AWB will be possible.

Meanwhile this is a great issue to use to try and get control of Congress. Make every Republican explain why these weapons ought to be easy for loonies and criminals to get hold of...

So they buy their guns on the black market. These laws don't have any affect on the black market.

and you will jerk your knee and pretend it doesn't exist.

And of course the corrupt gun industry has nothing to do with this mythical "black market"...the guns on the "black market" are left under cabbage leaves by the gun fairy.

...is supplied by illegally smuggled weapons from countries strapped for cash. You make it seem as if Colt is stamping out rifles and handing them to crack dealers, which simply isn't the case.

Nobody here has yet argued against a proposal to extend background checks to private sales. Just today, both myself and Slackmaster agreed that it is a pretty good idea. You just aren't paying attention, obviously.

And Wayne LaPierre is the Queen of the May.

I'd really like to know what your malfunction is.

needs an assault rifle...or posts barbaric rubbish.

As evidenced here.

Some of us have it, some of us don't.

or spout rubbish from right wing cesspools.

Three guesses, and the first two don't count.

There's a whole bunch of trigger happy "enthusiasts"...

n/t

I know you're not saying 39% of the Democratic party is lusting for assault weapons.

n/t

I'm not the one howling that somebody's privacy is being violated if the guns he brags about openly to strangers for some sick thrill somehow attract the attenmtion of his employers, neighbors or local law enforcement. That would be you.

In fact, he merely mentioned that he happens to own most of the "terrifying" weapons on the protestor's poster.

If you think that private ownership of a certain type of gun should be a red flag for an employer or law enforcement agency to investigate a person, then you truly are an authoritarian. Talk about a "sick thrill."

and you immediately started crying.

"If you think that private ownership of a certain type of gun should be a red flag for an employer or law enforcement agency to investigate a person, then you truly are an authoritarian."
Yeah, op...I'm one of those big government liberals the flabby junkie on the radio is always ranting to diitoheads about. And an arsenal like that is a public menace. What's more, you know it too, or you wouldn't be boo-hoo-hoo-ing like you have been lo these many posts.

Because as far as I can tell, you are a proponent of Big Brother government.

I'm proud to be a "big govenrment liberal"...see the quote I use as a signature?

"If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."

I'll send up a flare.

Until then I'll just console myself with the FACT that 77%-80% of the Aemrican voters, John Kerry, almost every prominent Democrat, and ever liberal writer I can think of agrees witrh me...and the asswipe who puts together the stentorian agrees with you.

I don't give a flying fuck what your dishonest VPC push-polls say. "Are you in favor of taking these spray-firing cop-killing bullet hoses off the streets? Yes or no."

I can't fucking believe in this era of neoconservative authoritarian rule, that people like you are begging the government to take more of your rights away. It's astonishing.

Most of us don't see living next door to a uncivilized numnutz with an arsenal, who has fantasies about shooting his fellow citizens, as much of a RIGHT.

"this era of neoconservative authoritarian rule"
Gee, and yet everyone of those "neoconservative authoritarian" ruling humholes is spouting this gun rights horseshit.

Makes most people realize what that rancid creed is really all about...but not our "pro-gun Democrats" who are mystified and in denial...although David Duke's inbred followers can decipher it easily.

Do you have your generic off-topic responses pre-macroed in your computer? No wonder you're up to 17,000 posts.

and the Second Amendment Caucus is dittomonkey central.

n/t

I'm pro-gun, but reamed the buttmunch that used the phrase a new asshole about it anyway. Not for his characterization of the numbers, but for referring to them as Dykes, which I took great offense at.

BTW, just to assauge Mr Bench's previously stated curiosity about my sexual orientation, I'm heterosexual. Fertile, too. WARNING: BABY UPDATE!!!!!! STOP READING NOW UNLESS YUU'RE INTERESTED IN BABY TALK!!!!! Expected date of forced induction is end of June, and it looks like it's going to be a little girl, with quite chubby cheeks, and her mother's chin, which is impressive. The baby to be is going to be HUGE, she's currently three weeks ahead of her actual gestational size. This means she measures as if it's been 33 weeks since conception, but is really only 30 weeks,

Shit, a daughter. That's like my worst nightmare...I have already imagined what a dick I'll be to guys who try to take my theoretical daughter out on a date. Please God...boys. Football players.

And I take offense to when people say "Dozen Dyke" or "Million Whore" as well. These people certainly have good intentions, and I think we should all be trying to work together to prevent the tragedies that motivated them to march.

I think that their intentions are misguided, because for every dead friend or relative they are marching for there is a gun...but there's also a violent person who picked up the gun and used it. I think the shooter is the core of the problem, not the tool they used.

They're the things that resulted in those little double graves in bygone years where we are, and still do in other places on earth. In another time or place, my sister would have been in one of them. Her first kid's head was in the nature of a pumpkin. Her midwife hauled her out of home birth fairly early in labour when it was evident that there was no progress. She spent hours in hospital, unfortunately at the exact same time as the woman in the next room was trying to bleed to death from an episiotomy, which left little time for her. She ultimately got morphine (less harmful to fetuses/babies than demerol) and was about to be zipped in for a caesarian section (having of course declined forceps) when the doctor got out the vacuum attachment and sucked little V. out. A bit of a pointy head, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

(And in the 97th percentile for height for a long time. Actually, just enormous all round; the Michelin kid, until she got to be about two; she's now just tall for her age and willowy. Last year I looked at an old video of her at about 10 months that I hadn't seen before, a lumpen scowling baby with rolls of fat and her father's spheroid face, being lifted out of a high chair ... and said Oh look, it's V. in her larval stage! My sister didn't find it quite as hysterical as I did.)

Situations like these two (and my friend's niece in West Africa who bled to death from post partum haemorrhage after a normal pregnancy and delivery, around the same time) being obvious illustrations of why no woman may ever be compelled to continue a pregnancy she does not want.

I have a giant head too of course. My mother used to surreptitiously switch the hats on coat-and-hat sets in stores, for a bigger size. (Actually, my mother's too compulsively honest, and is certainly indulging in hyperbole.) I think "iverglas" would be a charming name for a baby.

.

The moral of the story: your neighbor can't be trusted.

I find it ironic that the same people who complain about the Patriot Act taking their rights away line up to eagerly give their rights away.

It reads like you presume the reader knows the background.

"AK47s, UZIs, ASSAULT WEAPONS
COMING THIS SUMMER TO YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
COURTESY OF GEORGE W. BUSH
UNLESS YOU DO SOMETHING"

So the moral there is, your neighbor can't be trusted.

many of them are republicans.

and that the GOP are scum.

:dunce:

My neighbor shot a deer in the backyard, almost on a lark. We have 1/4 acre lots. That's a no no, even in season.

In my old neighborhood, my neighbor got drunk and came over shooting his Mr. Security Guard pistol into the ground to make noise on the fourth of July.

One of the teenagers in my old neighborhood shot another high school senior in the basement of someone's house. He's dead.

Did you report any of the illegal shooting to the police?

I hope you did. If you didn't, you facilitated it by allowing it to go unchallenged.

and as Uber tough guy Jesse Ventura put it, you cannot depend upon the police to keep order in your neighborhood. A supersonic projectile can pierce somebody's body a lot faster than the deputy could get here.

Did you turn any of them over to the police?

I would have. How about YOU?

(Whatever the heck they are) from behind the safety of our keyboards, than it is to call the police when a crime is witnessed.

Grrr! Crime!

Makes me want to go and sign an on-line petition or two I'll tell you that much!

They put the killer in some kind of juvenile detention facility until he was an adult.

I think I made a good case that there are "just some people" who cannot be trusted with firearms. I don't think they are all that rare. Look at all the shot up roadsigns, other poachers. Consider how irrational drivers react, the hot heads would be poor choices for owners of firearms.

This is a difficult call. I believe that possession of firearm-weapons is a liberty that Americans should have, but there should be limits on that liberty to prevent unneeded deaths and heartbreak. I cannot think of the ultimate method to keep the firearms out of the hands of people who are irrational or irresponsible. Of course, I don't read up on this policy much. I have more important things to worry about. I suppose if I ever buy a firearm I will read up on this policy (or if I need to research it for a candidate).

They put the killer in some kind of juvenile detention facility until he was an adult.

Ah, so it was a kid who got hold of a gun that was stored improperly, or a kid who was intentionally given a gun by a foolish adult. That changes the story a bit IMO, but I'm glad the kid was brought to justice. That's a waste of a perfectly good deer to bury it. The rule is if you kill it, you eat it.

Consider how irrational drivers react, the hot heads would be poor choices for owners of firearms.

Those people shouldn't have guns OR cars.

Some people just never mature.

Adults don't blow their tops over snubs or slights.

Sad it's infinitely easier to pooh-pooh about Assault Weapons...
(Whatever the heck they are) from behind the safety of our keyboards, than it is to call the police when a crime is witnessed.


And "911" works so well as a magic incantation to revive anyone who happens to get killed as a result of the criminal / negligent activities described.

.

:dunce:

that people who scream they need to tote guns around 24/7 EVEN TO CHURCH "for self defense" are complaining about anybody else's "lack of trust."

And yeah, I don't think most decent or sane people think it's a "right" to live near the sort of numnutz who wants to own an assault weapon.

But then I find it ironic that the people actually promoting the Patriot Act are also those trying to get these guns back in the stores.

...And CETME/G3's, FALs, Steyer AUGs, AR-15s, Galils, Tec-9s, Streetsweepers, Mac-10s...and I'm sure there's more.

I wonder why the CETME/G3 is shown without a magazine to make it look more menacing?

I must be evil for owning three weapons in this picture.

The Uzi illustrated in that poster is either a machinegun or a short-barrelled rifle.

If it's an SBR it might also be an "assault weapon", but that's moot because any rifle with a barrel under 16 inches is strictly regulated under federal law.

But never let facts get in the way of good propaganda.

Because they aren't scary-looking enough:

put a pistol grip and flash hider on either of the top two rifles and they instantly become evil, deadly assault rifles intended to be spray fired from the hip that can shoot forever and are extremely powerful and meant to kill as many people as possible quickly, (blah blah blah).

It must be pitiful to be anti-gun and run around misinformed all of the time. To live in fear that someone somewhere might have a rifle with a flash hider, pistol grip and bayo lug; because that's all it really boils down to.

Most people who support the AWB honestly believe it's the only thing keeping any crazed lunatic who wants a machinegun from taking the South Park Elementary School bus to Jimbo's Guns and walking out with one the same day.

But since caliber is never mentioned in "assault weapon" legislation, and those weapons are semi-automatic, they could easily be "converted" to assault weapons by adding a bayonet lug and a pistol grip.

on that poster, and intend to get the rest except for the tec-9 which is an unreliable POS.

For that matter, I wonder how your neighbors feel.....

Man, for someone who supposedly hates John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act, you sure seem eager to disregard peoples' privacy.

"you sure seem eager to disregard peoples' privacy"
Gee, did anybody here ask this "enthusiast" what guns he had? He seemed eager to share that info with the class here so the other "enthusaists" could all beat their meat over his mighty weapons....

Of course you and I both know that somebody who has an arsenal like that would be considered a public menace by decent people, employers and local law enforcement.

...they'd probably be pretty disturbed as well.

How does owning several guns make someone a "menace"? Last time I checked, you can only accurately shoot one gun at a time.

It's hilarious to see you pissing and moaning that his privacy is violated when he VOLUNTEERED the info.

"How does owning several guns make someone a "menace"?"
Gee, you tell me why you're pissing and moaning about my question then...

...about a hard drive with a morbid, extensive collection of gunshot wound news stories.

what we all know...that an arsenal like that would be considered by most decent civilized people as a public menace...for reasons that are all too obvious.

P.S.: I post those stories that have your panties in such a bunch here to show the horrendous toll caused by letting the corrupt gun industry set public policy...I don't save them.

But then I don't have to...America's irresponsible gun owners send me a new batch every damn day...and a multi-million dollar lobby fights to keep us all in the line of fire.

I guess not.

You long ago made my point for me....

I truly wonder what it would take to make a person like you happy. Is it even possible?

I'm just the one pointing out what the cost of letting a corrupt industry set public policy is.

You don't seem to enjoy anything.

I took my marvelous mom out for a sumptuous dinner at Jack & Giulio's for Mother's Day. If you live in the San Diego area or ever come to visit I recommend it to anyone who loves northern Italian cuisine. See http://www.jackandgiulios.com/

Like a dumbass I had an espresso for dessert around 8:00 PM. At age 46 I should know better than to consume any caffeine after noon.

The buzz kept me awake long enough to sit transfixed through every speaker in the nearly 3-hour program, which included a few tacky musical interludes. Peter Yarrow and his daughter spent more time getting through their sound check than performing.

After listening to all the heartfelt speeches by members of Congress, Bianca Jagger, numerous "moms" and others who had been victims or lost loved ones to violent crime I am more convinced than ever that most of them believe that the feeble "assault weapons" ban is the only thing preventing just about anyone from going to a gun store or gun show and buying a fully automatic weapon; no questions asked if it's a gun show.

I can't fault any of the speakers for their sincerity or good intentions. They abhor violent crime and so do I. The personal tragedies they've experienced or witnessed or heard about have energized them to try their best to "do something" about it. They are truly, honestly afraid that when the AWB expires on September 13 that all Hell is going to break loose, while in reality the only difference will be that people like me can put the bayonet lugs and flash hiders back on our rifles.

One poor woman, her last name was Anna IIRC, had tragically lost her 18-year-old daughter in the Columbine High School massacre. She has arisen from her devastation to fight to keep the ban alive. But from the way she described the operation of the weapon used to murder her child - a TEC DC-9 pistol, she clearly doesn't understand what the AWB is all about. She said that a person, without training, could pull the trigger and create a spray of bullets that would find the intended target, no aiming necessary. It must be horrible for her to visualize what happened on that terrible day, but the movie that plays in her mind is factually wrong. She is genuinely afraid that when the ban goes away that anyone will be able to go to a gun show and walk out with a fully automatic weapon.

It makes me sad to see so much positive energy misdirected. That's about all I have to say about it. I'll continue my work to inform people of the truth about the AWB at every opportunity.

I watched some of it too, and got the same impression. I also felt bad that these peoples' obviously good intentions are being so badly misdirected at the renewal of such ineffective laws that only harrass law-abiding citizens.

There's a compromise somewhere, because something needs to be done about gun violence. But going after guns on the legal market instead of the black market is counterproductive.

I think that pretty much sums it up.

That's the rationale I've heard so far.

That, and, "million is just a figure of speech."

of nutcases at the NRA.

Anything constructive to add, Bench? Or are you just going to spout off predictably?

It's instructive to see the sort of decent people who support this cause and the scummy right wing thugs in Congress and the press who oppose it.

I'll wager that none of us have ever met or corresponded with Ted Nugent, Wayne LaPierre, John Ashcroft, etc.

Shameful.

Here are some marchers:

"Save the boys"



Here's a little political cartoon to make you hate alcohol:

http://www.emilydickinson.org/classroom/temper/bottle1.html

"Just to take a drink"

Pretty soon, however, "the bottle has done its work:"

http://www.emilydickinson.org/classroom/temper/bottle8.html



My good friends in the dungeon, I say to you there's nothing new under the sun.

There have always been people who want to outlaw things they don't like, and this is still true today. There are always those who believe if only we passed such-and-such a law, things will be better. It's either demon rum or evil assault weapons that cause social ills, and by eliminating the thing you eliminate the ills, don't you? This argument seems to hold so much weight when approaching the problems of the drug war or abortion, but apply it to my pistol and all reason goes out the window. All of a sudden, I'm a Nazi. I hate blacks and uppity women and am a corrupter of youth.

Ban ephedra, ban guns, ban alcohol, ban tobacco. If you really want to "do good" and cut down on death ban tobacco...

This time we'll make it work!

Throughout history, it has been easier to blame objects then to blame people for their actions with the objects.

Part of what makes a society free is a citizen's ability to choose what is right or wrong for them. That citizen suffers strong penalties if their choices result in harm to another citizen.

I don't like the idea of a small group of uninformed people dictating to me what I "need" to own. Concentrate your ire on the people breaking the law...don't just re-write the law to include a larger subset of the population, that's lazy.

Just like some contributors here slander the gun industry.

Are you at all aware of what the WCTU's actual concerns were?

The abuse of women and children was the concern that motivated them.

On a very quick google: http://gbgm-umc.org/global_news/full_article.cfm?articleid=2257

The clearest historical example of church women fighting against abuse of women, but one that has been largely overlooked is the temperance movement of the late nineteenth century. Many of us know that the Woman's Christian Temperance Union turned normally quiet housewives into non-violent but ferocious fighters against the dangers of alcohol. What we are less likely to know is that behind the movement's temperance reform was a commitment to "protection of the home." The WCTU's leaders, including Methodist Frances Willard, believed that drinking caused men to beat their wives and abandon their children. Their crusade against alcohol was, at least in part, a protest of women's lack of civil rights and lack of legal recourse in situations of battering and rape. Under their motto of "Agitate - Educate - Legislate," those early reformers trained women to think on their feet, speak in public, and run an organization.

Some of us are rather proud to claim the WCTU as our foremothers. And the MMM is obviously in the same tradition, you're very correct: ordinary women organizing to address a situation in which women and children are too often victimized by violence, and to attempt to remove from that situation one of the factors that contribute to the problem. While in both instances the factor they want/ed to remove was perhaps not properly speaking the cause of the problem, it definitely is/was a sine qua non, the thing without which many women and children would not suffer the harm they do suffer when the factors are present.

* By "some of us", I can be taken as meaning, variously and correctly, "some human beings", "some feminists", "some politically active women", "some people who advocate strict regulation of access to firearms" ... .

.

And therefore the parallel still stands. They attacked the effect rather than the cause.

AS I SAID it did. Of course, like all analogies, it is merely approximate.


"They attacked the effect rather than the cause."

That's your opinion, nonsensical as it may be.

In point of fact, AS I SAID, the factors in question may have been the "effect" of something, as most things are, but they were and are necessary conditions for the violence to occur, or to be as extreme as it was/is, in many cases.

If that factor were not present, there would undeniably be a lot of women and children alive today who aren't.

This doesn't mean that it is possible to eliminate, or desirable to eliminate or try to eliminate, the factors in question. Those are separate issues from the FACT that the factors in question ARE links in the causal chain of much harm that is done by people who have access to/use them.

Feel free to comment. Just maybe try doing it without pretending that I didn't say what I said. Or hell, keep saying the same thing over and over after it's been rebutted. Don't care much, me.

.

No cars, no accidents.
No drugs, no overdoses.
No guns, no violence.
No cameras, no incriminating prison photos.

I guess the rationale extends far beyond this one issue.

"No alcohol, no child abuse."

I didn't hear anybody else saying it. Not even the reviled WCTU.

As a blanket statement, it is false. But it is TRUE IN SOME CASES. No alcohol in a particular situation, no child abuse. Want to deny that?

No alcohol anywhere, LESS child abuse. Want to deny that?

"No cars, no accidents.

Well, kinda by definition, eh? What you're actually saying is "no cars, no CAR accidents" - there would of course be other accidents. "No cars, no car accidents"? Well, duh.

"No drugs, no overdoses."

Well, duh again. No drugs, no DRUG overdoses.

Those little proverbs of yours just AREN'T quite the same thing as "no alcohol, no child abuse", are they now?

No cameras, no incriminating prison photos.

Again: duh. No cameras, no photographs taken by cameras. No cars, no accidents involving cars. No drugs, no overdoses on drugs. Duh de duh duh duh. I'm sure there's a point there somewhere.

Again: where's the parallel to "no alcohol, no child abuse"? And why would anyone say such a dumb thing? And who ever has?

Was someone saying "no firearms, no murdered women and no dead children"? Nobody I heard.

But I'll tell ya. No firearm, and my former amour's disabled 13-year-old who committed suicide in a state of depression would be alive. No firearm, and my client whose sister's estranged husband killed her would be alive.

Not argument. Simple and virtually certain statements of fact. Absent the hunting rifle, the child would virtually certainly not have looked for and found and succeeded in an alternative way of killing himself. Absent the revolver, the estranged husband would virtually certainly not have embarked on his attack on that family, let alone succeeded in killing someone.

There's just nobody to punish for the death of the child ... except for the father, who apparently negligently and illegally allowed his child access to the rifle. That should be satisfying to all those who like to punish evil doers.

Somebody got punished for the murder of the woman. Amazingly, she's still dead.

And some of us care about the people to whom these things will happen in future and whose deaths could be prevented. Just as the WCTU cared about the women and children who had not yet been abused or killed by the men in their lives but who would certainly be, and were, and whose suffering and deaths could have been prevented. Let us keep in mind that the WCTU *did* engage in other preventive activities beyond the attempt to ban alcohol, of course. Just as I know of no one who suggests that restrictions on access to firearms is a cure-all for anything at all.

I guess the rationale extends far beyond this one issue.

"Rationale"? None there that I see. A load of simplistic crap tossed out, presumably in the hope that someone simple-minded enough not to see through it will say "yes sir, you hit that nail on the head", is about all I can see.

.

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and the folks who were howling that it banned segregation and "the American way of life."

In fact, it's even got most of the same folks opposing it that are opposing gun control now...and often using the same rhetoric.

(P.S.: You should look at the history of the civil rights movement, and all the humholes who declared IT dead when only 600 showed up for the first March from Selma to Montgomery, after 250,000 had turned out for civil rights the year before.)

As we go marching, marching
In the beauty of the day
A million darkened kitchens
A thousand mill lofts grey
Are touched with all the radiance
That a sudden sun discloses
For the people hear us singing
Bread and roses, bread and roses

As we go marching, marching
We battle too for men
For they are women’s children
And we mother them again
Our lives shall not be sweetened
From birth until life closes
Hearts starve as well as bodies
Give us bread, but give us roses

As we go marching, marching
We bring the greater days
For the rising of the women
Means the rising of the race
No more the drudge and idler
Ten that toil where one reposes
But the sharing of life’s glories
Bread and roses, bread and roses

Words by james oppenheim (1912)


You're welcome.

And when you choose to trivialize, and misrepresent, the social and political and economic and moral concerns of sincere and committed and informed people by saying things like There have always been people who want to outlaw things they don't like, and this is still true today, well, the comment is not on the people you're aiming that bit of demagoguery at.


I swear it on my head
On my common woman's head
A common woman is as common
- as a common loaf of bread!
... and will rise.

I'm not sure where you're going with this.

I brought him up to be my pride and joy
Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder
To shoot some other mother's darling boy?

It reflects on op's silly howling about "civilized people"...i.e., the ones who know assault weapons have no place in a civilized country, except among those hate-filled thugs hoping to tear it down, and thus choose to keep them off the market. Roughtly 77%-80% of the American public feels the same way, and those who don't are siding with uncivilized vermin like Tom DeLay.

Most people who support the AWB don't really understand what it addresses and what it does not address.

Civilized people treat eachother with respect, regardless of if they happen to disagree.

and that leaves out the savages howling for assault rifles and waving clippings from sites like the stentorian...

There's a difference.

Now go snivel to poor Pete Coors about how unfair it all is...

Just thought I'd let you know.

or that other "civilized" soul who posted the crap about the "Dozen Dyke Hike"...

But that's just details, right?

Who the fuck do you guys think you're fooling?

Mildly amusing short read.

http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/civility/transcript.html

“When you see a Crime punished, you may be inwardly Pleased; but always shew Pity to the Suffering Offender.” … “unless there was a gun involved, then place the blame squarely on the NRA”

Also a big fan of:

“59e. Wave not your hand at the direction of your own fartice, so as to cause a waft of gas to pass apast the face of your friend.”