The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    "The question is"

    By Flavius on Wed, 10/04/2017 - 5:52pm |

    said Alice "whether you can make words mean so many different things". "The question is " said Humpty Dumpty " which is to be master-that's all."

    Another question is  how many members of the National Rapid Fire Murderous Weapon Association actually have the slightest desire to pull of the trigger of one. As opposed to those who want to show "which is to be master-that's all"..

    But in the spirit of outreach and good fellowship which I go on and on about at interminable length at every opportunity I have a modest suggestion. 

    Ban the damn things but  entrust the NR (fm)A with the sole right and weighty responsibility of operating a RFMW shooting range for the exclusive of  its members. Attendants behind/beneath the scene could keep score  presumably waving a large flag ( which was inelegantly titled "Maggie's Drawers" in the good old sexist Basic Training days for which they pine) when they completely misses the target   There could be life sized effigies of particularly preferred targets surely including Hillary in which particular case  success would  surely  give the sharp shooter an orgasm. First in years.   

    Comments

    If you are going to meet the NRA (and friends) somewhere between what they insist upon and your desire not to get shot, I think you are going to want to steer clear of the various compulsions and conditions that lead to fascination that some of them clearly are enveloped within. As Freud almost said, any fixed replay of a narrative means you have problems that are probably permanent. So I offer a different approach.

    The NRA has two narratives of why there should be no restrictions upon the private ownership of guns:

    • The government's premise that they have a monopoly upon the use of force won't help you if they aren't there at the right time. You are where you are all the time. Why not be armed?
    • The government itself may become your enemy. What if the frigging place becomes a police state and you are cowering behind a dumpster with just a kitchen knife?

    That's it. The whole enchilada.

    The first item is a hard item to bargain with. The sense of being powerless is in the eye of the beholder. It also can be the case. If you find yourself in a dangerous place, a gun is a possibility for something to change the equation. We live in different environments, separated by barely visible walls. If you think having a gun will help you, nobody is going dissuade you of that conviction. Certainly not this blogger on a liberal website.

    The second item is a much different issue. Resisting a state as militarily powerful as the United States with what a person (or militia) can stockpile is not a viable concept. But a powerful group disagrees. There are those who think they have to be prepared for organized combat. So far, the people who use these weapons developed for such a purpose just kill unarmed people having a life.

    The Second Amendment refered to an "organized militia". The idea of a common defense that could not be usurped by greater powers needs something more than an armory.


    by moat on Wed, 10/04/2017 - 7:59pm

    Those guys were pretty busy back in the  1790s .I don't know the history of the period but it was likely that Jay and Burr , Madison  and Randolph  et al knew they had to rough out some ground rules to distinguish between a Whisky Rebellion (no) or other military exercises like capturing escaping slaves of which they actually approved. And we shouldn't.

    To me the exhaustive analysis of some often- casual 18th century chatter is meaningless. Piffle.A majestic waste of Time that only a Scalia could think made sense.

    They had a go, passed down some suggestions deserving our attention. And others that were  wrong then and have aged poorly..

    Frankly Scarlet I don't give a damn what they thought  about the militia . I just know, like everyone else in the country although around 50% lie about it, that our need to protect our borders is considerably less than that to protect ourselves from anyone who's got his hands on anything more advanced than a six shooter. 

     


    by Flavius on Wed, 10/04/2017 - 9:24pm

    Jesus Flavius!

    This has got to be the best post I have ever witnessed!

    And I am a week late for chrissakes.

    I hereby render Flavius with the Dayly Month of the Day Award for this here Dagblog Site Given to all of Flavius from all of me.

    THIS IS GREAT.

    Yeah.

    I evidently was doing other things.

    But you were writing about necessary things.

    Thank you for this Flavius.

    Really. No joke.

    I am so sorry I missed this post.

    I make jokes.

    But I make no jokes about this post!

    Fuck the NRA!


    by Richard Day on Wed, 10/11/2017 - 6:59pm

    Sideways!


    by Flavius on Fri, 10/13/2017 - 5:59pm