I have no idea how to make people feel the horror one feels when you hold a killing machine in your hands.
I know I was terrified when I held an AR-15 for the first and only time. I knew exactly what it could do and I didn't feel good until I gave it back to my husband.
I've mentioned my father before-but what I didn't mention is that he helped design the M-60 machine gun in the 50's and helped bring it to production in the 60's. He went to the targeting ranges, he did all the usual stuff one does to make it work-and while he was proud of his work, he never once had a gun in our house under any circumstances.
It was the main machine gun used in the Vietnam war-he knew exactly what it could do, and I don't think he rested that easily afterward when he retired. Guilt does a number on people, and I think he would be horrified at the outright slaughter we're perpetrating on one another because he was of the belief no civilian should ever own a gun unless it was for hunting-certainly not for defense because unless you've earned your marksman medal from the military, you don't know shit.
And he knew his shit. He thought most people too stupid to hold a gun, let alone own it.
How right he was.
We're just goddamned advanced apes with bigger and deadlier stones.
I was disgusted to watch a news show and see a woman on the NRA Convention floor, who was wearing a hat with a gun emblem emblazoned on the side, smugly state “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. People WITH guns kill people 😡😢.
As a Navy veteran who served on a ship armed with nuclear weapons, and later on a ship in Viet Nam, I so very much appreciate this post. None of us wanted to use the weaponry we were provided, and many (including me) were left with a life long commitment to peace and de-escalation. My family sometimes doesn't understand how passionate I am about this, they don't have my experiences to draw on. Keep writing, as long as it takes.
I recall an article in which the author interviewed several proud new bump stock owners at a firing range where they tried out their new toys — and “toys” is exactly the right word. They were giddy with delight at tasting the forbidden fruit of machine guns, and described as giggling uncontrollably as they sprayed the target. At a firing rate around 10/sec., and .223 rounds going for about a quarter a pop, that’s $150 per minute of entertainment. But it was worth it to them — big kids with dangerous playthings. None, apparently, had been trained in the seriousness of firearms operation, nor felt the weight of responsibility that accompanies an instrument so efficient in taking human life. Your 19- and 20-year old comrades in Iraq were vastly more mature in contrast, because they knew from training and grim experience that these weapons are not toys. Tragically, the gun fantasy culture that’s grown up in the US, plus the economic incentives in marketing to those fantasies, plus the utter absence of meaningful regulation made permanent by the outsized political weight of gun fantasists, makes it certain that for the foreseeable future deadly weapons of war will be wielded in this country by the very least qualified to own them.
To live in a country where the gun has protection that humans do not is obscene and cannot last. There will be a tipping point, probably unexpected, but it will come and then hell will open up to swallow us up or enough people will take to the streets, the gun shops will lock their doors, for a while.
My late dad, USN landing craft veteran of D-Day, Philippines, and Okinawa, was given a Japanese rifle and bayonet fresh from the factory when his ship arrived at Yokahama. He told me many times, "that rifle's still at the bottom of Yokahama Bay." I've visited that harbor. I hope it's still there.
IF you accept the premise (and I’m not saying you should) that “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” (actually people with guns kill people) then making sure that the WRONG people don’t get guns should be THE priority. Don’t tell me gun laws don’t stop gun violence until you’ve passed every gun law possible.
Guns now the leading cause of death in children. President Biden just stated more children have died by gunfire in the last 20 years than police and military combined.
I was just in the rural Catskills visiting my sister & her husband. They are essentially city people who now live there full time. Her husband keeps a shotgun. And now I learn that their neighbors (who live on the Lower East Side of Manhattan) also bought one to “kill pests” and also for “self-defense.” I pointed out that that means they would be willing to aim that thing at a human and pull the trigger, with possibly fatal results. My bro-in-law (a thoughtful intellectual) calmly said yes. I’m still processing the idea that lovely, humane people I know could contemplate killing another human. My folks had a country house for 40 years. Dad dispatched garden “pests” when necessary with traps or by drowning. They were pretty isolated and it was the era of Capote’s “In Cold Blood,” but the subject of a gun never came up. Times have changed.
There is plenty of outrage… starting with guns, but including voting rights, the right to choose, climate change, police violence … but we are now living in the land of minority rule… and those in power are holding fast. We have to keep screaming, writing, marching, posting and, of course voting, until … well, we don’t know the outcome. But we must try.
When Moscow Mitch utters the words "Gun Safety," we might have a chance here.
Anyone see Greg Steube, FL-17, on MSNBC tonight?
Waving his weapons at home. He believes Former won, and was one of the few morons who refused to acknowledge the Capitol Police after the 1/6 insurrection. Pitiful.
I have no idea how to make people feel the horror one feels when you hold a killing machine in your hands.
I know I was terrified when I held an AR-15 for the first and only time. I knew exactly what it could do and I didn't feel good until I gave it back to my husband.
I've mentioned my father before-but what I didn't mention is that he helped design the M-60 machine gun in the 50's and helped bring it to production in the 60's. He went to the targeting ranges, he did all the usual stuff one does to make it work-and while he was proud of his work, he never once had a gun in our house under any circumstances.
It was the main machine gun used in the Vietnam war-he knew exactly what it could do, and I don't think he rested that easily afterward when he retired. Guilt does a number on people, and I think he would be horrified at the outright slaughter we're perpetrating on one another because he was of the belief no civilian should ever own a gun unless it was for hunting-certainly not for defense because unless you've earned your marksman medal from the military, you don't know shit.
And he knew his shit. He thought most people too stupid to hold a gun, let alone own it.
How right he was.
We're just goddamned advanced apes with bigger and deadlier stones.
I was disgusted to watch a news show and see a woman on the NRA Convention floor, who was wearing a hat with a gun emblem emblazoned on the side, smugly state “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. People WITH guns kill people 😡😢.
That's right up there with "The only thing that stops a bad man with a gun is a good man with a gun."
As a Navy veteran who served on a ship armed with nuclear weapons, and later on a ship in Viet Nam, I so very much appreciate this post. None of us wanted to use the weaponry we were provided, and many (including me) were left with a life long commitment to peace and de-escalation. My family sometimes doesn't understand how passionate I am about this, they don't have my experiences to draw on. Keep writing, as long as it takes.
I recall an article in which the author interviewed several proud new bump stock owners at a firing range where they tried out their new toys — and “toys” is exactly the right word. They were giddy with delight at tasting the forbidden fruit of machine guns, and described as giggling uncontrollably as they sprayed the target. At a firing rate around 10/sec., and .223 rounds going for about a quarter a pop, that’s $150 per minute of entertainment. But it was worth it to them — big kids with dangerous playthings. None, apparently, had been trained in the seriousness of firearms operation, nor felt the weight of responsibility that accompanies an instrument so efficient in taking human life. Your 19- and 20-year old comrades in Iraq were vastly more mature in contrast, because they knew from training and grim experience that these weapons are not toys. Tragically, the gun fantasy culture that’s grown up in the US, plus the economic incentives in marketing to those fantasies, plus the utter absence of meaningful regulation made permanent by the outsized political weight of gun fantasists, makes it certain that for the foreseeable future deadly weapons of war will be wielded in this country by the very least qualified to own them.
To live in a country where the gun has protection that humans do not is obscene and cannot last. There will be a tipping point, probably unexpected, but it will come and then hell will open up to swallow us up or enough people will take to the streets, the gun shops will lock their doors, for a while.
Your last sentence is for the ages.
My late dad, USN landing craft veteran of D-Day, Philippines, and Okinawa, was given a Japanese rifle and bayonet fresh from the factory when his ship arrived at Yokahama. He told me many times, "that rifle's still at the bottom of Yokahama Bay." I've visited that harbor. I hope it's still there.
As Andy Borowitz wrote, “quoting” Mitch McConnell, “There is no verifiable link between guns and shooting.”
IF you accept the premise (and I’m not saying you should) that “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” (actually people with guns kill people) then making sure that the WRONG people don’t get guns should be THE priority. Don’t tell me gun laws don’t stop gun violence until you’ve passed every gun law possible.
Guns now the leading cause of death in children. President Biden just stated more children have died by gunfire in the last 20 years than police and military combined.
We're #1 in the world in
COVID deaths per capita (G7 countries)
Gun homicides
American exceptionalism:
Unfettered capitalism
Rampant consumerism
We are a sick society.
Out in the open racists
I was just in the rural Catskills visiting my sister & her husband. They are essentially city people who now live there full time. Her husband keeps a shotgun. And now I learn that their neighbors (who live on the Lower East Side of Manhattan) also bought one to “kill pests” and also for “self-defense.” I pointed out that that means they would be willing to aim that thing at a human and pull the trigger, with possibly fatal results. My bro-in-law (a thoughtful intellectual) calmly said yes. I’m still processing the idea that lovely, humane people I know could contemplate killing another human. My folks had a country house for 40 years. Dad dispatched garden “pests” when necessary with traps or by drowning. They were pretty isolated and it was the era of Capote’s “In Cold Blood,” but the subject of a gun never came up. Times have changed.
To quote Madeleine Dean, Vice Chair of the Judiciary Committee: “Where is the outrage?!”
There is plenty of outrage… starting with guns, but including voting rights, the right to choose, climate change, police violence … but we are now living in the land of minority rule… and those in power are holding fast. We have to keep screaming, writing, marching, posting and, of course voting, until … well, we don’t know the outcome. But we must try.
Yes, we must, and I wish the pundits would stop talking as if the GOP taking back Congress in November is a done deal.
this also makes me completely CRAZY....
One way or another
One way or another
One way or another
THIS DARKNESS GOT TO GIVE
(Songwriters: Robert Hunter / Jerry Garcia
New Speedway Boogie lyrics © Ice Nine Publishing Co., Inc., Ice Nine Publishing Co. Inc.)
Ice Nine Publishing...Cat's Cradle lives on!
i think it was andrew dominik who wrote: america’s not a country—it’s a business. now fucking pay me!
When Moscow Mitch utters the words "Gun Safety," we might have a chance here.
Anyone see Greg Steube, FL-17, on MSNBC tonight?
Waving his weapons at home. He believes Former won, and was one of the few morons who refused to acknowledge the Capitol Police after the 1/6 insurrection. Pitiful.
Multiple people injured in a shooting at a Wisconsin cemetery during a funeral today. Just another day in America 😢😡😢
😢😡😥