Last updated on 2013.09.07
I shouldn't pay any more attention to The Right Side, part of Gordon Howie's pretend blog empire. Ed Randazzo has closed the comments, which means he isn't really writing a blog anymore.
However, I keep an eye on his rantings, just to maintain a sense of the fear and trembling that motivates the typical right-wingnut's every whimper. Today's post is a perfect example. One unsourced anecdote about burglars getting the drop on a concealed-weapon permit carrier who left his gun at home turns into an exhortation to carry firearms everywhere, all the time. They have their guns... and you don't! You're going to die! Aaaaahhh!
I walked to work this morning through shadowy back alleys. Oh, the danger! I'm sitting in McDonald's right now, in earshot of I-90, which surely carries all sorts of nefarious drug smugglers, human traffickers, and other criminal elements. I likely face more risk to my personal well-being from the breakfast burrito I willingly ate (mmm, sausage and cheese...) and from the Fox and Friends propaganda chirping from the corporate telescreens than I do from any physical danger that I might repel with a firearm.
Supposedly we lefties have the obsession with Hollywood. Yet wingnut gun fetishists like Randazzo seem to be wallowing in Hollywood fantasies—Marshall Dillon? Mad Max?—in which the only thing standing between them and bandit anarchy is their ability to play gunslinger.
You can live your life in fear, Ed. But deep down, you won't be enjoying that trembling life very much.
The perfect state: everyone owns guns, and carries them openly, freely, wherever they go, without any need of permits or background checks. There is minimal federal government, and it has no power to interfere with your children's education, nor any regulatory power over business, from labor laws to environment. Taxes are low, and the collection system is easily evaded. There are no socialist programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. There are no unions. It's called Somalia.
Thank the Higher Powers for places like rural, backwoods, hillbilly South Dakota! After living in Miami for the better part of the 1980s and 1990s, I can tell you that we're doggone lucky here. We don't have to maintain a wingnut paranoid attitude in Dakota Territory. (Not that people have to do it anywhere.)
I'll raise a glass to that, Stan! My wife did see a "skeezy" character downtown last night, but he did not motivate her to get a pistol at Wal-mart.
...be careful Cory, I might know that guy. Probably one of my artist or musician buddies. LOL.
Cory, the right to bear arms does not mean you have to. Who died and made you the gun pope for the rest of us? And just when you guys thought the Dominion Theology crowd was authoritarian.
You packin' heat, Sibby?
There's something about political paranoia, whether left or right, that devolves into weapons fetishes. The gun toters seem to me to be a bit too enamored of their own powerlessness. Perhaps that's because they go further and further off the left or right edge, losing touch with the reality of normal folks. In their imagination they think a weapon masks their weakness and weirdness. Really, it just shows what creepy pussies they are.
I have no problem with people owning guns. The problem comes when paranoids own guns. People who think there's a criminal or gov'ment agent waiting to accost them shouldn't own guns.
Mr. Sibson, your comment is better directed at Mr. Randazzo. I am criticizing exactly the attitude that he expresses and that you suggest I am advocating. Mr. Pay captures my thoughts perfectly.
Cory, I don't go along with the elitism of the middle. It does not take much to stand on the fence and shot at both sides.
Did Mr. Randazzo say we need metal detectors so that we can force guns on those that don't set the machine off?
To Cory's point, tragically, thre policemen were recently killed here
in Rapid City on a routine stop. They had been talking to the guy and his buddies for about 10 minutes. The police let the other three guys go, and asked the shooter to stay, because he was starting to act a little suspicious (not telling them his name, etc.) And then, he suddenly pulled out a pistol and shot all three of them. Proof positive that Randazzo is wrong. Carrying a weapon and knowing how to use it —even in combination with wearing a bullet proof vest — is no assurance whatsoever that you won't be shot if someone wants to shoot you.