[John Isbell]

In two days, Walmart and Kroger (the nation's largest grocery store) have ended gun sales to under-21s.
The NRA has spent some years being absolutist, for fear their carefully cultivated air of invincibility would vanish. Well, now that's happening.
Paper tiger?

Cheers,
John

[Andrew Szilvasy]

The fact that a grocery store is selling guns at all tells you all you need to know about the US.

[James Brancheau]

Hahaha, yeah, Andrew, absolutely. And Trump being even in the ballpark of being electable tells you the stench of American culture right now. I think after the Senate flips (I'm less confident about the gerrymandered house), there should be hell to pay. I'm not satisfied with Democrats either, of course. They really need backbone, and the unexpected force of common sense. Which is why, in the last election, Dems needed Bernie as the front runner. I know I strayed from the point, as I do, too often, but I see this lazy affirmation of the status quo most prevalent in Americans. It's thoughtless arrogance to elect a man like Trump as president. What do you think will happen when it comes to guns? The non response after Sandy hook was nothing short of shameful. I'm done trying to talk sense with a country so unhinged.

[Douglas G. Brown]

Originally Posted by Andrew Szilvasy

The fact that a grocery store is selling guns at all tells you all you need to know about the US.

Well, for one thing, if you use the gun to hunt, it is not in the long - term best interest of a grocery store to sell it to you. Makes about as much sense as a gas station selling bicycles.

This is a new one to me. Super Wal Marts do this, but Wal Mart did not begin as a grocery store.

[RCL]

It's the Fred Meyer stores, owned by Kroger, that sold guns. Glad to hear they stopped. My first job as a kid was stocking shelves at a local Kroger store.

[James Brancheau]

Just to add, I've been pushing one of my best friends here in Taipei to write an essay about gun culture in America. Maybe 1004 essays have already covered this, but it was the first time I'd heard of this. What distinguishes the United States from frontier countries like Canada or Australia?

[James Brancheau]

I didn't know supermarkets sold war machinery. Kinda crazy, right? Not crazy like Benghazi-- I mean, that was crazy beyond belief. That Hillary didn't act fast enough is enough for a hundred hearings where they knew they had nothing. Now we have the dumbest, most corrupt, bankrupt fuck on the planet as president. Congratulations. Happy so many conservatives wanna spend their time arguing whether or not someone was skinned alive almost 2000 years ago. Nice.

[John Riley]

An obvious point is that the same arguments the NRA and it's whores use about AK-15s or any other war weapon can also be used for missiles, even nuclear ones. If every citizen needs an assault weapon to protect him or her from the government, as they say, then logically we all should be allowed to have our own nuclear weapon. At its heart, the NRA's arguments are opposed to the idea of the U.S. being a nation-state of peoples with the similar values and worth. Next to the financial elite, who pull money from our economy to park in overseas accounts and never have their children go into the military, the NRA and its supporters are the most anti-American sub-groupings in the U.S. today.

[Cally Conan-Davies]

James (post #6) -- did you read this?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/23/o...e=sectionfront

I have recently escaped America because I couldn't swallow any more. I will never ever forget the moment when I first arrived there, wandering down the supermarket aisle with its shelves of fabric softener and antibacterial wipes, and on reaching the end of the endless array of static dust mops and soft toilet tissue, two men were aiming great big guns at the ceiling and making clicking sounds, and there were guns on the counter all around them, and beyond them storage containers and children's blow-up toys and tennis racquets. And I turned into the next aisle with its female hygiene products and how to cover up your grey hair options, traumatised. I had never seen a gun close up in my long life.

I could go on. But will not. Only wanted to say the article above is really true, and something to think about.

[John Isbell]

Yes, this moment is hardly going to be the end of American gun violence. But I am hopeful that if people come to feel the NRA is beatable, that can begin to change the narrative. I too feel their leadership is another toxic force at work on the American fabric. A commentator the other day was arguing that whatever principles or priorities the group once had have boiled down now to simple self-perpetuation. In which they are hardly unique.

John