[Andrew Frisardi]

Besides American macho b.s., there's this I just saw on Twitter, posted by @jennycohn1:

The NRA’s Wayne LaPierre is in the Council for National Policy, which networks the Religious Right w/ billionaires & has ties to voting machine vendor ES&S. The CNP’s members also include Pence & the Cambridge Analytica crew (Mercers, Bannon, KA)

Here are the mass killers free to drink their martinis and watch the sun rise.

[John Isbell]

In their suits and their ties. They certainly are. I also wager they sleep the sleep of babies every night, like Trump or Mitch McConnell.
In other words, the consciencectomy was a success.

Cheers,
John

[Mark McDonnell]

It's a horrible joke.

My basic starting point is that a gun is a penis. But I can't fathom why so many Americans feel the need for a metal penis.

Yes John. It's always men. Mass shootings are appalling in their horrific spectacle, which is the reason why it's these incidents which dominate the media and prompt the latest round of gun-control debates (which inevitably fizzle out into a legislative nothing when the news cycle moves on). This latest seems to be linked to far-right ideology which the killer accessed online. Trump's presidency has definitely legitimised and emboldened this poisonous subculture, though mass shootings with all manner of 'motivations', of course, are nothing new. But mass shootings account for a tiny percentage of US gun deaths, with male suicide, (male) gang-related homicide, and domestic/family murders (committed by men) massively outstripping them. Violence is primarily a male problem. And the disgraceful unwillingness to do anything about easy access to guns, which makes violent death so much more likely, is a specifically American problem. Anyway, some statistics.

https://everytownresearch.org/gun-violence-america/

And the Charlie Brooker piece on media response and responsibility that I'm always reminded of when these awful things happen.

https://youtu.be/PezlFNTGWv4

[Erik Olson]

Good question, Andrew! The answer is multipronged and long, but here goes nothing.

Modern American gun zealotry springs from threefold factors: the proliferation of firearms since the earliest days of the nation; the sentimental connection between ownership of guns and the country's revolutionary and frontier history; and the deepseated mythology around firearms in the frontier, where they were key to survival, and in modern life, when droves strangely act as if they still were.

The gun was an indispensable tool to the settlers in America who relied on it for subsistence hunting, for protection against wild animals, and for defense from the hostile part of the indigenous inhabitants. The necessity of bearing arms to abide in the wild country that was America meant that guns became ubiquitous and embedded into the fabric of the rustic society. Indeed, for many American men for a long time, shooting skill was vital and gun ownership a 'rite of passage'. With origins in this historical reality, the bearing of arms is also central to a romantic notion of American identity, that of the rugged self-autonymous individual— think the romanticizing Wild West loner who lives, loves, and dies according to a ruthless law of first dibs and rugged individualism as in The Good The Bad and the Ugly.

Although none nowadays need rifles to survive in the desert anymore, the ethos of the first frontiersmen did not die when they did, having been inherited by the American mind through to the present, why so many of us are repulsed fundamentally by so-called "government handouts", why so many think of the gun as the last bastion of freedom. All thoroughly anachronistic but kept alive by the rhetoric of the NRA not to mention the archetypes on the silver screen.

Such are the antecedents of the current gun culture which the NRA continues to bolter by all means with their expertly honed rhetoric. Among the most powerful special interest lobby groups in the US, and with a substantial budget to influence members of Congress on gun policy, the National Rifle Association campaigns indefatigably against any and all forms of gun control in the US and argues that the right to bear arms is as fundamental as that to speech and that more guns make the country safer. Such nonsense is easily swallowed by the numbers for whom guns are a full-fledged hobby like golfing is to others. Asking for the guns from gun nuts is like asking for the clubs from golfers. They are loath to concede that the toys they find so exhilarating, that makes them feel so godlike, and that holds such mystique connected to their version of American identity should be taken from them for the good of the many. This will inevitably leave out a few of the many chapters needed for a complete explanation, but then you already knew that. To conclude, then, facts:

In 2016 the NRA spent $4m on lobbying and direct contributions to politicians as well as more than $50m on political advocacy, including an estimated $30m to help elect Donald Trump president.

More than just the numbers, however, the NRA has developed a reputation in Washington as a political force that can make or break even the strongest politicians.

Its overall annual budget is roughly $250m, allocated to educational programs, gun facilities, membership events, sponsorships, legal advocacy, and countless other related efforts down to nifty NRA Pride Pins for its staunch citizen votaries.

[Andrew Szilvasy]

Andrew,

A guy in El Paso who had a gun did save kids but smartly didn't go after the shooter. He could have and would have saved the kids without the gun.

Also, he had his gun drawn and the cops almost shot him.

[Andrew Frisardi]

Thanks for that, Eric, I always forget about the frontier rugged individualist factor. My Boston Irish and Italian family was cuddly and collectivist. Your succinct screed reminds me that the NRA is a terrorist organization far more insidious than ISIS.

Andrew, I think I saw videos of that guy. I'm glad he was so smart.

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Andrew Szilvasy

This country's a joke, and will still be that in 2021 if we have a new president.

The U.S. definitely had problems before Trump, many of them directly related to the minority party strategically flouting some standards and laws while insisting that the party that represents the majority honor other standards and laws. One election won't fix all the problems. Nonetheless, there's reason for hope.

Some newly elected representatives, most prominently the four nicknamed "the squad," are clearly unwilling to be complicit in the normal political games; they and their supporters have changed the Democratic Party's rhetoric, including that of a lot of presidential candidates.

Two trends: authoritarians gaining and solidifying power (Hungary, Brazil, the U.S., and elsewhere); majorities standing up and taking control (Hong Kong and Puerto Rico through street protests; one election each in Turkey and the U.S. suggests it may be happening there electorally). The U.S. still has power and influence, so our election could create a lot of momentum for one of those movements.

[Matt Q]

Thanks for the Charlie Brooker clip, Mark. The closing section is as effective as it is depressing.

[Jim Moonan]

x
A horrible joke is an understatement. It's both a joke and no joke.

Mark is right to put things in perspective: mass shootings account for a tiny percentage of gun deaths in this country. The issue is not mass shootings. It’s the astronomical number of guns. This from Axios:

• The US has 270 million guns (No other country has more than 46 million guns — the U.S. is way worse than the Philippines, Russia, China or India.)
• US citizens alone own 40% of all guns in the world, more than all civilians combined in 25 other countries.

They went on to say: "America has the world's worst gun problem. And now it's being forced to confront its hate problem."

Come on! Where's gun reform/control's equivalent to a "Me Too" moment?


IMO, gun ownership should be significantly restricted. We need to do much more than better background checks.

I’m sorry but I just don’t see the gun as an extension of a penis. I just don’t get that comparison. The reason for the ugly cancerous manifestation/growth/twisted interpretation of a constitutional right are these things:

Hatred
Immature, narcissistic/self-gratification character traits (like Allen said)
Mental illness
Societal moral decay/civic decrepitude
Male privilege/supremacy
Fear
Media

...But no penis IMO. It doesn't even come close to being instructive. Yes, it's always men. But I think it points more to what's in their head vs. between the legs. Just to introduce the word "penis" into this seems a distraction.


Now this just in: Trump wants to negotiate concessions with gun control for concessions with immigration. I think I'm going to hurl...
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[A. Sterling]

Originally Posted by Andrew Frisardi

Thanks for that, Eric, I always forget about the frontier rugged individualist factor.

Andrew, I think you’ve put your finger on the problem with the individualism vs. collectivism dichotomy. Most of the people who seriously go in for guns are radical individualists. People feel like it’s every man (or woman) for themselves, and the result of this is a highly dissatisfactory culture where you’ve got hardly anything holding people together. So what do you do to resuscitate some sense of comradeship? Find a common enemy. Liberals, immigrants, ethnic group X – whatever does the job. Or find a powerful figure to gather behind. Better yet - find one who rallies them against their common enemy and gives a sense of purpose to their lives....

Erik, I think, gave a very good outline further up, but I want to add a piece of the puzzle that I seldom see mentioned. In parts of Europe – I only know about this in the context of German history, but I’m sure it was true for many places – it used to be illegal for anybody other than the nobility to carry weapons around. And so when immigrants from those countries came over, the right to bear arms was one most of them had never had before. You can see how the association between freedom and guns would have been very strong even for people who never did anything with them.