A reader commented on my earlier post today about a new cold civil war by saying “I now believe that the left must start to buy as many guns as they can and learn how to use them effectively.” Given the state of things in this country, I can certainly understand this idea.
I concur with the response from our leader. Florrible now has, at Gov. DeSmarmy's urging, a law allowing ANYONE to carry a CONCEALED weapon with NO training required. I am now even more grateful for my indoor inclinations. Along these lines, out for dinner with friends, the neighboring drunks were so loud I considered asking them to pipe down. Realizing the state I was in (not annoyed, but Florida) I dismissed that thought because I realized I could get shot. I am dead serious, forgive the infelicitous phrase.
"the state I was in (not annoyed, but Florida) is unintentionally very funny. I guess you could use "I am so Florida today!" to mean feeling insane, intolerant, or any number of negative emotions--especially if you have to deal with a real deSantis (an idiot, not the governor)
Ah, but it was intentionally funny. (That is because, when I was a working journalist, I wrote a syndicated column that some papers
classified as a humor column. Even when I was "Dear Prudence" at Slate there was often humor with the advice. To tell you the truth, I wouldn't know how to *not* be funny.)
The funny is just there. Sometimes it gets me into trouble. I.e., At a dinner at the Smithsonian, I neither recognized nor knew the name or face of my dinner partner, so like the good American I am I asked him, "What do you do?" He said, "I am chief of staff for Chief Justice Roberts." The next thing out of my mouth was, "Listen, can you do something about your boss?" He was a good sport about it.
More relevant would likely be phenotypical traits --- like the color of one's skin.
I'm not at all sure if local prosecutors anywhere, in Sarasota or Seattle, Santa Fe or Scituate, would shrink from confronting a *country club drunk,* rather than just attempt to interpret the law's application, and for an unethical prosecutor, apart from sub rosa bribes or less obvious incentives, wouldn't it depend on possible past incidents with firearms involving the CCD, grudges or outrights feuds between friends of the CCD and the prosecutor or her or his staff, family, etc.? There's a host of possible facts and scenarios with a historical trail to follow, whether in a small or a large metropolitan area.
Details matter! One standard response of law students confronted with a bare bones hypothetical posed by a professor is, of course, *WE NEED MORE FACTS!*
As a life-long firearms owner, primarily for personal and home defense, I tell my unarmed left comrades the same thing — use your time and money to get out the vote and support progressive candidates rather than playing soldier. And having lived in a red state much of my life, I know that these dudes don’t feel like running around, sleeping in the mud, shooting and getting shot at. If they did, as you note, they’d join the military.
When and why did America go insane about guns? When gangsters had machine guns in the 1920's, automatic weapons were made illegal. When JFK was assassinated with a gun Oswald purchased from a mail order catalogue, mail order sales of guns was made illegal. After the attempt on President Reagan's life, the Brady bill was passed requiring background checks and a waiting period to buy guns. And during the Clinton years, there was an assault weapon ban. Yet after Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Uvalde, and now Nashville, nothing even though data shows the number one cause of death among children and adolescents is guns. As Justice Breyer wrote both at the beginning and at the end of his dissenting opinion in last year's gun case out of New York where Justice Thomas manufactured historical fiction to support LESS gun control, we have a gun crisis in this country. Good guys with guns is not the answer. We have over 300 million guns in the hands of US residents today and we have still had over 100 mass shootings so far this year. Banning gun sales seems like a good idea but with that many guns in America, a ban on gun sales is unworkable, although stopping the sale of assault-type weapons would help. You have to pass a driving test to get a license to drive. How about mandating the same for gun ownership. Regulating open and concealed carry would also be a step in the right direction. This insanity must end.
MaryPat, I think it would be better to ban military-style rifles along with their large magazines and flesh-shredding bullets. Exorbitant prices for normal ammo could be a hardship for those who hunt for the freezer.
I remember Chris Rock saying the same thing on an HBO comedy special about ten or fifteen years ago. but if you can make a handgun with a 3D printer, making your own ammo can't be that much of a stretch, can it?
A lot of the history of firearm use comes back to slavery in that the wealthy planters greatest nightmare was an armed slave.Keeping guns out of the hands of slaves was foremost to wealthy white men. Fugitive slaves were to be rounded up and handled accordingly.Guns were a weapon of the white man after all.
For a very good history and analysis of America's history with guns, I recommend Carol Anderson's THE SECOND: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America, about how and why the 2nd Amendment came to be.
About when and why America went nuts -- I'm a little fuzzy on the year, and IIRC it was in the late 1970s that the NRA morphed from an outfit that emphasized safety, education, sports, and hunting to a right-wing powerhouse. At around the same time Ronald Reagan was elected president. Part of the Republican shtick then, as now, was whipping up fear of crime and pushing the war on drugs. See the synergistic possibilities here? The Reagan administration is scaring the hell out of white men in particular (but not, of course, exclusively) and the NRA is selling them guns to make them feel safer. The ban on semi-automatic weapons expired in 2004. In 2008 the SCOTUS in D.C. v. Heller erased the "militia" part of the 2nd Amendment and said anyone could "keep and bear arms." And god knows how many mass shootings later, here we are.
A fish rots from the head, and the SC is festering. When the regulating body of a democracy is corrupt, this is what happens. The court is corrupt, and there needs to be balance.
Either the corrupt justices need to be impeached, or seats need to be added. Or the rot will spread and stink for a long time.
There's no viable chain of possession for that Mannlicher-Carcano and not only that, Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago sent a different rifle than the one on the order form. Dallas police officers were filmed holding up a rifle outside the Texas School Book Depository shortly after the assassination with *Mauser* stamped on the stock, and Oswald can't even be placed on the sixth floor at the time of the shots:
This is a link to the You Tube video "The Killing Floor," focusing on three eyewitness to the JFK assassination who worked on the fourth floor of the TSBD in the Scott Foresman offices, Victoria Adams, Sandra Styles, and the office manager, Dorothy Garner. Their testimony is crucial, since the only way Oswald could have reached the second floor immediately after the shots were fired was via the stairs, as the elevator wasn't working that day. Vicki and Sandra were going down those stairs seconds after witnessing the motorcade and hearing the shots fired.
Ms. Adam's testimony was altered by the Warren Commission staff, Sandra Styles' testimony was excluded from the Warren Report --- watch even the first ten minutes of the video, and you'll see why their collective testimony, along with Garner's, serves as a powerful alibi for Oswald --- verifying his account that he was on the second floor in the employee's cafeteria when JFK was assassinated.
There isn't a jury in the United States that would have convicted Oswald for shooting anyone at all that day, whether JFK or Patrolman Jefferson Davis Tippit. The cases were flimsy at best as presented by the Warren Report, and have all the marks of a classic cover up.
After all of the documentary material now held in the National Archives released by the Assassinations Record Review Board in the 1990s, as well as scathing criticism of the Warren Commission's shoddy, self-contradictory, and outright criminal deployment of bogus *evidence* by key members of the AARB ---also available on You Tube, Douglas Horne in particular has shown the massive flaws in the forensics, medical, and other evidence presented by the WC --- and books by earlier critics, like Mark Lane in Rush to Judgment (1965) and Sylvia Meagher in Accessories After the Fact (1967), and District Attorney Jim Garrison's On the Trail of the Assassins (1988), so it's been decades since anyone should fall for that *One-lone-nut-with-a-lousy-rifle-murdered-live-on-television-while-surrounded-by-over fifty-cops-by-another-lone-nut* hoax.
^^^^ Still absolutely crucial and relevant for understanding how the cover up proceeded after the JFK assassination.
It's also likely to be one of the wittiest, most brilliantly sarcastic interviews you will read all year, so there's that. It was a direct response to a NBC News special which aired in 1967 aimed at smearing Garrison, which was so unconscionably flawed the network was compelled to afford the district attorney of New Orleans a whopping 1/2 hour to refute the charges made in the NBC special program.
We have to get out the vote. Period. That said, some of us "Woke liberals" were born and raised with guns. The difference is, we don't talk about it . We don't "Flaunt" them. And.....they aren't automatic weapons that are good for absolutely nothing except blasting whatever you are aiming at into unrecognizable pieces.
YUM!!! Wonderful! I pick wild and tame blueberries, blackberries and strawberries, but go to local farm stands for peaches, cherries, and raspberries. And apples and apricots and grapes and tomatoes and I think I better eat breakfast before I go anywhere this morning!
Should the left start buying guns? I'm torn. Do we need to be ready for the right wing to attempt an armed insurrection to establish the Karl Rove 1000 year Republican Reich? Yes, of course. Do we need to respond with guns? Maybe. But I also believe nothing would drive the right to advocate gun control than mass purchases of AR-15s by black men and women. It's what drove Ronald Reagan to impose gun control in California. Why not her? Why not now?
PS - I am well trained in gun safety. If it comes to it, I will arm myself and be ready.
I feel, in a theoretical way, if the left shoulf get guns, it should be sniper rifles. Remove the head(s) of the beast. Speaking strictly theoretically.
Because what I'd like to see is mankind take a great evolutionary leap beyond weapons and violence and other human downfalls so our species and planet survive. Blame my teen 1960s countercultural days for that dream.
You make some valid points, that I don't disagree with, but are not my first, if ever, choice of actions. I suspect that the Right's leanings toward racism, or general fear of others not like themselves, would find a way to keep as many AR-15s out of the hands black men and women, as they possibly could. As for an armed Left militia, here are very few people that I would trust with a gun in their hand. People are shot with empty guns far too often for my comfort.
I have by both inclination and training the ability to use violence, including deadly force, in defense of self and others. I train at least quarterly to maintain handgun proficiency.
I do not advocate those who are not able to injure or kill another human arming themselves. I want you behind me, supporting me, not doing something so antithetical to your nature and making that decision to kill someone. Let me do that. I’ve done the work and maintain my skills.
Ally, I agree that only highly trained, trustworthy people should have guns. Could you edit this sentence in your comment? I can't quite parse what you meant:
"I do not advocate those who are not a let to injure or kill another human arming themselves."
Did you mean something like "I do not advocate letting those who are not trained risk injuring or killing another human being by arming themselves"?
The thing worse is when the bad guy gets it and (hopefully) takes it a way or (not so hopeful) takes it and kills the owner/rapes at gunpoint.
I had many occasions (retired cop here) to talk with people who, after a burglary, wanted to get a gun for "protection". I would always ask, very bluntly "can you kill someone?" I never got a "yes" answer, and almost always steered them towards a baseball bat/golf club as being most familiar to use and easy to wield under stress.
Appreciate this column, Lucian. I just started reading The Undertow by Jeff Sharlet. He tells a story early on about Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier flying into an area in the South shortly after Goodman, Chaney and Shwerner were killed. They were delivering cash to civil rights workers and ended up in a vehicle chase.
I skipped ahead to the last chapter to read about Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson and Lee Hayes playing in Peekskill, NY and barely escaping with their lives. It seems like maybe the way of non-violence takes more courage and I suppose there are setbacks.
On the holiest of weekends I pray for the same courage all these folks had.
Absolutely! If this ends in another shootin’ war, there are other ways. I think especially of the Black counter-protestors in Charlottesville who, when confronted by torch carrying, armed proto-Nazis loudly sang joyous songs. The goons simply didn’t have a response. Don’t play their game by their rules!
YES!!! Absolutely no guns for civilians. Rely on our disciplined leadership in the NGuard. Remember what non-violence did in the Civil Rights Movement---and songs were crucial!!!! We may -- as true not fake patriots-- be called upon to be part of new Selmas and Bridges.... sure the CR movement achieved only part and there were martyrs (alas) who were powerful in what they accomplished in life. Could say more but I think point made.
The “good guy with a gun” idea is born of our self projection into shows and movies where some victimized “good guy” turns their victimhood into retribution against evil. As enticing as this idea is, it is far from the practical reality. Any person with a conscience will think long and hard before taking another life. Those who don’t must be molded in some way - by fear, indoctrination, disinformation, a sense of deep persecution and so forth. At the end of the day it is far more likely that a sick individual who has dispensed with normal humane consideration, will react to a seeing a gun with more immediacy than the vast majority of persons thinking they may be able to defend against it. The delay of a “good guy with a conscience” will likely get them killed. On the other hand, knowing their own inclination to delay they may opt to not delay resulting in a terrible mistake. Maybe - if I saw a loved one threatened I'd be able to react correctly but without training it's just speculation.. Far better to avoid owning guns and work towards minimizing them in society overall. At a minimum get the military style weapons out of the hands of untrained people and, for lack of a better descriptor, cult members.
I abhor the proliferation of guns in our society and their totemic stature with too many dysfunctional souls. On the other hand, I have an editing client who is a gun guy, not a MAGA jerk or right winger, was even a gun journalist for a while. I've requested we go to the range. Way I figure it, learning gun control by firing (targets only, of course) will enhance my ability to advocate for gun control. Firearm murder mania is a problem screaming for a solution. What it is in the end, overall, I am not sure. But it must come and soon.
I worry about this issue, but not because I think the under-trained, undisciplined fascists are going to get off their sofas, put down their beers, get together, and successfully overthrow the government. I'm worried about a much darker scenario that is one of our possible futures. The rich tycoons and technocrats who attend Davos were apparently all talking at this year's gather about how to handle a "polycrisis". That's the new buzzword. We are in one right now: Worldwide pandemic triggers millions of deaths, supply-chain gridlock, widespread shortages, big job losses, economic turmoil, the necessary government infusion of resources to avoid a depression is perhaps applied bluntly and causes sudden inflation, which leads to a delayed Fed response to raise interest rates which starts causing bank failures and may still cause a recession. And in the middle of it, Russia starts a gratuitous and brutal war to take over Ukraine, blockading grain shipments and leading to food shortages in developing countries. And all through the current polycrisis, another aggravating factor is that climate change has progressed to the point where catastrophic hurricanes, tornadoes, prolonged droughts, mega wildfires, and torrential rains leading to disastrous floods are now happening all over America, at a pace Americans cannot keep up with.
I worry that armed white nationalists, fascists, and others driven by crazed QAnon theories and Trump-pumped hatred of "libruls" will at some point decide, perhaps in the middle of a polycrisis worse than Covid+supply chain+war in Ukraine+gas prices, that the rules don't apply to them anymore, might makes right, and they are entitled to take whatever they want and kill whomever declines to hand it over submissively. I think I should stop reading dystopian projections and go back to concentrating on GOTV activities like the 50 postcards I wrote for Protasiewicz last winter. In other words, I already joined the GOTV army. Stop the doom fantasies and make more phone calls, write more postcards.
I completely agree with you. We need more democracy, not more armed citizens. As you note, we have the National Guard to deal with any armed militia attempting to install a fascist state. The bigger threat is one we've already seen and continue to see: attempts to overthrow legitimate elections, subvert and undermine the process, as well as denying some the right to vote at all. The solution is to buttress and improve our democratic systems so that all can have a voice.
Actually Lucian, they do train. I live in rural NV and there is an area a few miles away, replete with firing range, where virtually every weekend, the militias (one or more of 5) practices. They have tried to intimidate me when Ive been watching and photographing.
Training, real Training, is a lot more than just going to a firing range. Reread the part about learning to overcome fear. That has nothing to do with shooting guns and wearing camo.
Not by a long shot (pun intended). A group of us out here estimate there are about 1,000 - 1,500 active militia in NV with about 2/3 reasonably well trained, the rest are pretty much rabble. Lots of these guys are ex-military, mostly marines.
I wish people would stop using the word "scary" when they mean "maddening." The bad guys thrive on fear. Don't feed it to them. This is not just semantics. Get used to being committed to pushing back, not to expressing fear in the hopes that the crocodile will suddenly develop a sense of decency through empathy. That way leads to the east.
As usual, Lucian, you nailed it. I have a friend, a few years younger than I, who served in Vietnam, a hunter, a staunch conservative Democrat, who proudly says , “I’m ready for them.” He means the militia types, the RWNJs, and I don’t doubt he means it. I generally avoid any discussions along those lines, and I’m not being holier-than-thou. They just make me very uncomfortable. Other than an antique single-shot target rifle, that hasn’t been fired in over 60-years, I don’t own any guns, nor have I any intention of changing that. Certainly not at my age. It disturbs me no end to hear the talk of how we need to have a shoot-out with those we disagree with at the OK corral at high noon. As if we lived on the frontier in 1850. The absurdity, the idiocy, of a country that has more guns than people never ceases to astound me. I agree with everything you said in your response comment. I am fortunate enough to live in a state (Massachusetts), which has strict gun safety statutes, and public safety entities in which i have confidence. The list of places that I no longer want to visit, let alone live, grows almost by the day. Guns for everyone carrying them everywhere is not my idea of safety. Americans’ obsession with guns has become psychotic, and I fear it will not end well.
Agree 100%, Lucian. That scenario is the gun manufacturers' wet dream. A vast new market! We would become Northern Ireland on a much, much bigger scale.
Maybe, maybe not. The roots of *The Troubles* go all the back to Cromwell oppressing, viciously brutalizing what is now the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, in the 17th century, and even before then, with an extensive ongoing struggle marked by for example,. the 1798 Wolfe Tone (a Protestant btw) Irish nationalist revolt, and on through fights in Parliament about Home Rule for Ireland, right through Irish neutrality in WW2 after the Republic of Ireland was established in 1921, on through the 1960s, The Troubles, The Good Friday Agreement, to now.
The controversies that might lead to *civil war,* in some form or other, in the U.S. do not share nearly the same kind of continuity over centuries as in Ireland/Northern Ireland, do they? If we agree on that, maybe what we would see here would be markedly different, should things get worse enough to qualify as a *civil war.*
Thanks for the review of the history of the Irish troubles Richard. Is there any correlation here with our deeply embedded racism (to any non-white race). Seems this country was born to hate.
I just wrote a response, the page refreshed and it vanished, short answer is I agree.
WTH, it's been a long day, 6AM to now, I need to continue with my weight training and the anti-gravity inversion table, with jazz shuffled via the Windows Media Player anyway, the Stan Getz Award Winner Album (1959) to Chet Baker's version of My Funny Valentine, Sketches of Spain/Miles Davis/ Live at the Nighthawk/ Errol Garner/Penthouse Suite/Bill Evans Trio/ Blues of all sorts, Thundering Herd/Artie Shaw, there are over 8,000 cuts and I keep adding more via the Hennepin County Library collection!
I concur with the response from our leader. Florrible now has, at Gov. DeSmarmy's urging, a law allowing ANYONE to carry a CONCEALED weapon with NO training required. I am now even more grateful for my indoor inclinations. Along these lines, out for dinner with friends, the neighboring drunks were so loud I considered asking them to pipe down. Realizing the state I was in (not annoyed, but Florida) I dismissed that thought because I realized I could get shot. I am dead serious, forgive the infelicitous phrase.
"the state I was in (not annoyed, but Florida) is unintentionally very funny. I guess you could use "I am so Florida today!" to mean feeling insane, intolerant, or any number of negative emotions--especially if you have to deal with a real deSantis (an idiot, not the governor)
Ah, but it was intentionally funny. (That is because, when I was a working journalist, I wrote a syndicated column that some papers
classified as a humor column. Even when I was "Dear Prudence" at Slate there was often humor with the advice. To tell you the truth, I wouldn't know how to *not* be funny.)
Margo, I caught the humor and loved it. More please! Also, anyone who says anything like "forgive the infelicitous phrase" is my kind of person.
Blessings on your head. Thank you.
You iz funny, you iz!
The funny is just there. Sometimes it gets me into trouble. I.e., At a dinner at the Smithsonian, I neither recognized nor knew the name or face of my dinner partner, so like the good American I am I asked him, "What do you do?" He said, "I am chief of staff for Chief Justice Roberts." The next thing out of my mouth was, "Listen, can you do something about your boss?" He was a good sport about it.
I just looked at this again. I think
"a deSantis" could become shorthand for authoritarian-adjacent-unAmerican jerk. Pass it on.
I heartily endorse the above political message by Margo Howard!
But Margo, don't you have that *stand your ground* law on your...side....
Never mind.
No ... the drunks would've had it on their side!
Wouldn’t that depend on if the were country club drunks or “common” drunks?
Not in Florida!
More relevant would likely be phenotypical traits --- like the color of one's skin.
I'm not at all sure if local prosecutors anywhere, in Sarasota or Seattle, Santa Fe or Scituate, would shrink from confronting a *country club drunk,* rather than just attempt to interpret the law's application, and for an unethical prosecutor, apart from sub rosa bribes or less obvious incentives, wouldn't it depend on possible past incidents with firearms involving the CCD, grudges or outrights feuds between friends of the CCD and the prosecutor or her or his staff, family, etc.? There's a host of possible facts and scenarios with a historical trail to follow, whether in a small or a large metropolitan area.
Details matter! One standard response of law students confronted with a bare bones hypothetical posed by a professor is, of course, *WE NEED MORE FACTS!*
That alas is a ever present danger now !!! Very scary.
Margo, thank you for Florrible. I’ll have to tuck that one away for safe keeping. I live in Guns in Bars Georgia, so your comments here resonate.
Also "Horrida."
I like that, too.
You're most welcome.
I agree with you 100%. We need more democracy, not more guns.
As a life-long firearms owner, primarily for personal and home defense, I tell my unarmed left comrades the same thing — use your time and money to get out the vote and support progressive candidates rather than playing soldier. And having lived in a red state much of my life, I know that these dudes don’t feel like running around, sleeping in the mud, shooting and getting shot at. If they did, as you note, they’d join the military.
When and why did America go insane about guns? When gangsters had machine guns in the 1920's, automatic weapons were made illegal. When JFK was assassinated with a gun Oswald purchased from a mail order catalogue, mail order sales of guns was made illegal. After the attempt on President Reagan's life, the Brady bill was passed requiring background checks and a waiting period to buy guns. And during the Clinton years, there was an assault weapon ban. Yet after Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Uvalde, and now Nashville, nothing even though data shows the number one cause of death among children and adolescents is guns. As Justice Breyer wrote both at the beginning and at the end of his dissenting opinion in last year's gun case out of New York where Justice Thomas manufactured historical fiction to support LESS gun control, we have a gun crisis in this country. Good guys with guns is not the answer. We have over 300 million guns in the hands of US residents today and we have still had over 100 mass shootings so far this year. Banning gun sales seems like a good idea but with that many guns in America, a ban on gun sales is unworkable, although stopping the sale of assault-type weapons would help. You have to pass a driving test to get a license to drive. How about mandating the same for gun ownership. Regulating open and concealed carry would also be a step in the right direction. This insanity must end.
Ammunition should br $1,000 each. Bullet, that is.
MaryPat, I think it would be better to ban military-style rifles along with their large magazines and flesh-shredding bullets. Exorbitant prices for normal ammo could be a hardship for those who hunt for the freezer.
Yes. Venisom backstraps tonight for dinner!! None of my hunter friends would ever own a military-style rifle.
I remember Chris Rock saying the same thing on an HBO comedy special about ten or fifteen years ago. but if you can make a handgun with a 3D printer, making your own ammo can't be that much of a stretch, can it?
A lot of the history of firearm use comes back to slavery in that the wealthy planters greatest nightmare was an armed slave.Keeping guns out of the hands of slaves was foremost to wealthy white men. Fugitive slaves were to be rounded up and handled accordingly.Guns were a weapon of the white man after all.
For a very good history and analysis of America's history with guns, I recommend Carol Anderson's THE SECOND: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America, about how and why the 2nd Amendment came to be.
About when and why America went nuts -- I'm a little fuzzy on the year, and IIRC it was in the late 1970s that the NRA morphed from an outfit that emphasized safety, education, sports, and hunting to a right-wing powerhouse. At around the same time Ronald Reagan was elected president. Part of the Republican shtick then, as now, was whipping up fear of crime and pushing the war on drugs. See the synergistic possibilities here? The Reagan administration is scaring the hell out of white men in particular (but not, of course, exclusively) and the NRA is selling them guns to make them feel safer. The ban on semi-automatic weapons expired in 2004. In 2008 the SCOTUS in D.C. v. Heller erased the "militia" part of the 2nd Amendment and said anyone could "keep and bear arms." And god knows how many mass shootings later, here we are.
A fish rots from the head, and the SC is festering. When the regulating body of a democracy is corrupt, this is what happens. The court is corrupt, and there needs to be balance.
Either the corrupt justices need to be impeached, or seats need to be added. Or the rot will spread and stink for a long time.
There's no viable chain of possession for that Mannlicher-Carcano and not only that, Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago sent a different rifle than the one on the order form. Dallas police officers were filmed holding up a rifle outside the Texas School Book Depository shortly after the assassination with *Mauser* stamped on the stock, and Oswald can't even be placed on the sixth floor at the time of the shots:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtF1mM9gcW4
This is a link to the You Tube video "The Killing Floor," focusing on three eyewitness to the JFK assassination who worked on the fourth floor of the TSBD in the Scott Foresman offices, Victoria Adams, Sandra Styles, and the office manager, Dorothy Garner. Their testimony is crucial, since the only way Oswald could have reached the second floor immediately after the shots were fired was via the stairs, as the elevator wasn't working that day. Vicki and Sandra were going down those stairs seconds after witnessing the motorcade and hearing the shots fired.
Ms. Adam's testimony was altered by the Warren Commission staff, Sandra Styles' testimony was excluded from the Warren Report --- watch even the first ten minutes of the video, and you'll see why their collective testimony, along with Garner's, serves as a powerful alibi for Oswald --- verifying his account that he was on the second floor in the employee's cafeteria when JFK was assassinated.
www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-killing-floor
www.maryferrell.org/pages/The_Case_Against_Oswald.html
There isn't a jury in the United States that would have convicted Oswald for shooting anyone at all that day, whether JFK or Patrolman Jefferson Davis Tippit. The cases were flimsy at best as presented by the Warren Report, and have all the marks of a classic cover up.
After all of the documentary material now held in the National Archives released by the Assassinations Record Review Board in the 1990s, as well as scathing criticism of the Warren Commission's shoddy, self-contradictory, and outright criminal deployment of bogus *evidence* by key members of the AARB ---also available on You Tube, Douglas Horne in particular has shown the massive flaws in the forensics, medical, and other evidence presented by the WC --- and books by earlier critics, like Mark Lane in Rush to Judgment (1965) and Sylvia Meagher in Accessories After the Fact (1967), and District Attorney Jim Garrison's On the Trail of the Assassins (1988), so it's been decades since anyone should fall for that *One-lone-nut-with-a-lousy-rifle-murdered-live-on-television-while-surrounded-by-over fifty-cops-by-another-lone-nut* hoax.
www.jfklancer.com/Garrison2.html
^^^^ Still absolutely crucial and relevant for understanding how the cover up proceeded after the JFK assassination.
It's also likely to be one of the wittiest, most brilliantly sarcastic interviews you will read all year, so there's that. It was a direct response to a NBC News special which aired in 1967 aimed at smearing Garrison, which was so unconscionably flawed the network was compelled to afford the district attorney of New Orleans a whopping 1/2 hour to refute the charges made in the NBC special program.
We have to get out the vote. Period. That said, some of us "Woke liberals" were born and raised with guns. The difference is, we don't talk about it . We don't "Flaunt" them. And.....they aren't automatic weapons that are good for absolutely nothing except blasting whatever you are aiming at into unrecognizable pieces.
Had fantastic venison backstraps tonight for dinner. Don't tell anyone!
lucky you!
I have a deal with a group of local hunters - my fruit pie in exchange for their venison or grouse or bluegill or salmon...
We do the same...it beats buying store bought meats. I also trade cakes, and veggies in season, and peaches that we grow!
YUM!!! Wonderful! I pick wild and tame blueberries, blackberries and strawberries, but go to local farm stands for peaches, cherries, and raspberries. And apples and apricots and grapes and tomatoes and I think I better eat breakfast before I go anywhere this morning!
U ate dead animal
Yes. Tastier than when alive.
Should the left start buying guns? I'm torn. Do we need to be ready for the right wing to attempt an armed insurrection to establish the Karl Rove 1000 year Republican Reich? Yes, of course. Do we need to respond with guns? Maybe. But I also believe nothing would drive the right to advocate gun control than mass purchases of AR-15s by black men and women. It's what drove Ronald Reagan to impose gun control in California. Why not her? Why not now?
PS - I am well trained in gun safety. If it comes to it, I will arm myself and be ready.
I feel, in a theoretical way, if the left shoulf get guns, it should be sniper rifles. Remove the head(s) of the beast. Speaking strictly theoretically.
Because what I'd like to see is mankind take a great evolutionary leap beyond weapons and violence and other human downfalls so our species and planet survive. Blame my teen 1960s countercultural days for that dream.
If we humans want to save this planet we must face the fact that we are all ONE WORLD.
I have the same dream, too! Is there something in the air, or is it my age?!
Do you have grandchildren? I have but one, love him to pieces. That’s my something always in the air.
You make some valid points, that I don't disagree with, but are not my first, if ever, choice of actions. I suspect that the Right's leanings toward racism, or general fear of others not like themselves, would find a way to keep as many AR-15s out of the hands black men and women, as they possibly could. As for an armed Left militia, here are very few people that I would trust with a gun in their hand. People are shot with empty guns far too often for my comfort.
what you said.
Oops, you've already said what I was posting above. I do think it would be a reality check for white bigots.
Interesting idea re gun control—but I’m not willing to take a chance that it would work!
I have by both inclination and training the ability to use violence, including deadly force, in defense of self and others. I train at least quarterly to maintain handgun proficiency.
I do not advocate those who are not able to injure or kill another human arming themselves. I want you behind me, supporting me, not doing something so antithetical to your nature and making that decision to kill someone. Let me do that. I’ve done the work and maintain my skills.
Ally, I agree that only highly trained, trustworthy people should have guns. Could you edit this sentence in your comment? I can't quite parse what you meant:
"I do not advocate those who are not a let to injure or kill another human arming themselves."
Did you mean something like "I do not advocate letting those who are not trained risk injuring or killing another human being by arming themselves"?
Done. I was on my phone, and hit space instead of b. Autofill decided I met "a let" rather than "able". Sigh. I don't proofread nearly well enough.
The thing worse is when the bad guy gets it and (hopefully) takes it a way or (not so hopeful) takes it and kills the owner/rapes at gunpoint.
I had many occasions (retired cop here) to talk with people who, after a burglary, wanted to get a gun for "protection". I would always ask, very bluntly "can you kill someone?" I never got a "yes" answer, and almost always steered them towards a baseball bat/golf club as being most familiar to use and easy to wield under stress.
Appreciate this column, Lucian. I just started reading The Undertow by Jeff Sharlet. He tells a story early on about Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier flying into an area in the South shortly after Goodman, Chaney and Shwerner were killed. They were delivering cash to civil rights workers and ended up in a vehicle chase.
I skipped ahead to the last chapter to read about Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson and Lee Hayes playing in Peekskill, NY and barely escaping with their lives. It seems like maybe the way of non-violence takes more courage and I suppose there are setbacks.
On the holiest of weekends I pray for the same courage all these folks had.
But, the arc of history does bend towards justice.
https://www.thebulwark.com/the-racial-element-of-trumps-attacks-on-his-prosecutors/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Absolutely! If this ends in another shootin’ war, there are other ways. I think especially of the Black counter-protestors in Charlottesville who, when confronted by torch carrying, armed proto-Nazis loudly sang joyous songs. The goons simply didn’t have a response. Don’t play their game by their rules!
YES!!! Absolutely no guns for civilians. Rely on our disciplined leadership in the NGuard. Remember what non-violence did in the Civil Rights Movement---and songs were crucial!!!! We may -- as true not fake patriots-- be called upon to be part of new Selmas and Bridges.... sure the CR movement achieved only part and there were martyrs (alas) who were powerful in what they accomplished in life. Could say more but I think point made.
The “good guy with a gun” idea is born of our self projection into shows and movies where some victimized “good guy” turns their victimhood into retribution against evil. As enticing as this idea is, it is far from the practical reality. Any person with a conscience will think long and hard before taking another life. Those who don’t must be molded in some way - by fear, indoctrination, disinformation, a sense of deep persecution and so forth. At the end of the day it is far more likely that a sick individual who has dispensed with normal humane consideration, will react to a seeing a gun with more immediacy than the vast majority of persons thinking they may be able to defend against it. The delay of a “good guy with a conscience” will likely get them killed. On the other hand, knowing their own inclination to delay they may opt to not delay resulting in a terrible mistake. Maybe - if I saw a loved one threatened I'd be able to react correctly but without training it's just speculation.. Far better to avoid owning guns and work towards minimizing them in society overall. At a minimum get the military style weapons out of the hands of untrained people and, for lack of a better descriptor, cult members.
I abhor the proliferation of guns in our society and their totemic stature with too many dysfunctional souls. On the other hand, I have an editing client who is a gun guy, not a MAGA jerk or right winger, was even a gun journalist for a while. I've requested we go to the range. Way I figure it, learning gun control by firing (targets only, of course) will enhance my ability to advocate for gun control. Firearm murder mania is a problem screaming for a solution. What it is in the end, overall, I am not sure. But it must come and soon.
I worry about this issue, but not because I think the under-trained, undisciplined fascists are going to get off their sofas, put down their beers, get together, and successfully overthrow the government. I'm worried about a much darker scenario that is one of our possible futures. The rich tycoons and technocrats who attend Davos were apparently all talking at this year's gather about how to handle a "polycrisis". That's the new buzzword. We are in one right now: Worldwide pandemic triggers millions of deaths, supply-chain gridlock, widespread shortages, big job losses, economic turmoil, the necessary government infusion of resources to avoid a depression is perhaps applied bluntly and causes sudden inflation, which leads to a delayed Fed response to raise interest rates which starts causing bank failures and may still cause a recession. And in the middle of it, Russia starts a gratuitous and brutal war to take over Ukraine, blockading grain shipments and leading to food shortages in developing countries. And all through the current polycrisis, another aggravating factor is that climate change has progressed to the point where catastrophic hurricanes, tornadoes, prolonged droughts, mega wildfires, and torrential rains leading to disastrous floods are now happening all over America, at a pace Americans cannot keep up with.
I worry that armed white nationalists, fascists, and others driven by crazed QAnon theories and Trump-pumped hatred of "libruls" will at some point decide, perhaps in the middle of a polycrisis worse than Covid+supply chain+war in Ukraine+gas prices, that the rules don't apply to them anymore, might makes right, and they are entitled to take whatever they want and kill whomever declines to hand it over submissively. I think I should stop reading dystopian projections and go back to concentrating on GOTV activities like the 50 postcards I wrote for Protasiewicz last winter. In other words, I already joined the GOTV army. Stop the doom fantasies and make more phone calls, write more postcards.
I completely agree with you. We need more democracy, not more armed citizens. As you note, we have the National Guard to deal with any armed militia attempting to install a fascist state. The bigger threat is one we've already seen and continue to see: attempts to overthrow legitimate elections, subvert and undermine the process, as well as denying some the right to vote at all. The solution is to buttress and improve our democratic systems so that all can have a voice.
Actually Lucian, they do train. I live in rural NV and there is an area a few miles away, replete with firing range, where virtually every weekend, the militias (one or more of 5) practices. They have tried to intimidate me when Ive been watching and photographing.
Training, real Training, is a lot more than just going to a firing range. Reread the part about learning to overcome fear. That has nothing to do with shooting guns and wearing camo.
The Wild West is what it is. I don't think they're the only training grounds.
Not by a long shot (pun intended). A group of us out here estimate there are about 1,000 - 1,500 active militia in NV with about 2/3 reasonably well trained, the rest are pretty much rabble. Lots of these guys are ex-military, mostly marines.
That's very worrisome.
That is scary.
I wish people would stop using the word "scary" when they mean "maddening." The bad guys thrive on fear. Don't feed it to them. This is not just semantics. Get used to being committed to pushing back, not to expressing fear in the hopes that the crocodile will suddenly develop a sense of decency through empathy. That way leads to the east.
Of course you are correct. Thank you.
As usual, Lucian, you nailed it. I have a friend, a few years younger than I, who served in Vietnam, a hunter, a staunch conservative Democrat, who proudly says , “I’m ready for them.” He means the militia types, the RWNJs, and I don’t doubt he means it. I generally avoid any discussions along those lines, and I’m not being holier-than-thou. They just make me very uncomfortable. Other than an antique single-shot target rifle, that hasn’t been fired in over 60-years, I don’t own any guns, nor have I any intention of changing that. Certainly not at my age. It disturbs me no end to hear the talk of how we need to have a shoot-out with those we disagree with at the OK corral at high noon. As if we lived on the frontier in 1850. The absurdity, the idiocy, of a country that has more guns than people never ceases to astound me. I agree with everything you said in your response comment. I am fortunate enough to live in a state (Massachusetts), which has strict gun safety statutes, and public safety entities in which i have confidence. The list of places that I no longer want to visit, let alone live, grows almost by the day. Guns for everyone carrying them everywhere is not my idea of safety. Americans’ obsession with guns has become psychotic, and I fear it will not end well.
Agree 100%, Lucian. That scenario is the gun manufacturers' wet dream. A vast new market! We would become Northern Ireland on a much, much bigger scale.
Maybe, maybe not. The roots of *The Troubles* go all the back to Cromwell oppressing, viciously brutalizing what is now the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, in the 17th century, and even before then, with an extensive ongoing struggle marked by for example,. the 1798 Wolfe Tone (a Protestant btw) Irish nationalist revolt, and on through fights in Parliament about Home Rule for Ireland, right through Irish neutrality in WW2 after the Republic of Ireland was established in 1921, on through the 1960s, The Troubles, The Good Friday Agreement, to now.
The controversies that might lead to *civil war,* in some form or other, in the U.S. do not share nearly the same kind of continuity over centuries as in Ireland/Northern Ireland, do they? If we agree on that, maybe what we would see here would be markedly different, should things get worse enough to qualify as a *civil war.*
Thanks for the review of the history of the Irish troubles Richard. Is there any correlation here with our deeply embedded racism (to any non-white race). Seems this country was born to hate.
I just wrote a response, the page refreshed and it vanished, short answer is I agree.
WTH, it's been a long day, 6AM to now, I need to continue with my weight training and the anti-gravity inversion table, with jazz shuffled via the Windows Media Player anyway, the Stan Getz Award Winner Album (1959) to Chet Baker's version of My Funny Valentine, Sketches of Spain/Miles Davis/ Live at the Nighthawk/ Errol Garner/Penthouse Suite/Bill Evans Trio/ Blues of all sorts, Thundering Herd/Artie Shaw, there are over 8,000 cuts and I keep adding more via the Hennepin County Library collection!
I will revisit this thread tomorrow!
Unsquare Dance!