Pro-gun activists who say the right to own firearms is under attack from President Barack Obama's proposals to reduce gun violence held "high noon" rallies across the United States on Saturday in support of gun ownership rights.Not only did these loyal gun owners have a chance to express their love of guns and hate of Obama, based on paranoia and racism, respectively, but they had the extra benefit, thanks to the organizers, of saying a big "fuck you" to the Martin Luther King celebrants.
In the photo above, which is the Guns Across America pro-gun rally at the State Capitol in Albany, New York, women don't seem to be properly represented, in spite of all the claims to the contrary, and blacks are totally absent. This is a movement of middle-aged, angry, white men.
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
North Korea has total gun control in place for decades. The borders are protected with armed guards, mines and electronic surveillance. Even with one of the hardest and most dangerous borders, there are approximately 5000 attempts annually to breach them. Unfortunately only about 1800 last year were successful. The countries oppression is handed out by what is called "the great leader". There is really nothing great about him. He has concentration/work camps that further enclose approximately 200,000 prisoners, mostly political. The citizens of the country are starving to death especially in the winter months. Documented cases of people boiling clay and grass to eat, just to fill their stomach. You need a special travel pass to travel outside your area in which you are assigned to live and work. Defectors have told stories of torture, forced labor and public executions. You can be executed just by forgetting to wear your beloved leader pin that shows your loyalty to the regime. Now when you take all that in account, dont you think that if the population was armed with guns, they might not let their families be carried off to be executed, or put in concentration camps. They might also not let the regime put them in a postition that they are half starved. If armed????
ReplyDeletehttp://reason.com/reasontv/2012/12/02/i-escaped-a-north-korean-prison-camp-shi
Are you saying the US may turn into something like North Korea? Is that what you're worried about?
DeleteHERE YOU GO YOU RACAST Before the Civil War ended, State “Slave Codes” prohibited slaves from owning guns. States persisted in prohibiting blacks, who were considered "free" after the civil war, from owning guns under laws renamed “Black Codes.” They did so on the basis that blacks were not citizens, and thus did not have rights to defend themsevles with guns. This view was specifically articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in its infamous 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford to uphold slavery.
ReplyDeleteFacially neutral disarming through economic means laws remain in effect today.
After the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1878, most States turned to “facially neutral” business or transaction taxes on handgun purchases. However, the intention of these laws was not neutral. An article in Virginia’s official university law review called for a “prohibitive tax” of selling handguns as a way of disarming “the son of Ham." "Let a negro board a railroad train with whiskey and a pistol in his grip and the chances are that there will be a murder before he alights.” [Comment, Carrying Concealed Weapons, 15 Va L. Reg. 391, 391-92 (1909); George Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1, “Gun Control and Racism,” Stefan Tahmassebi, 1991, p. 75]
Thus, many Southern States imposed high taxes or banned inexpensive guns so as to price blacks and poor whites out of the gun market.
In the 1990s, “gun control” laws continued to be enacted so as to have a racist effect if not intent. Many blacks are arrested to this day for frivolous "gun law violations" and then locked in private prisons. The "war on guns," like the "war on drugs," is solely designed to keep undesirable populations defenseless and locked up in prisons.
- Police-issued license and permit laws, unless drafted to require issuance to those not prohibited by law from owning guns, are routinely used to prevent lawful gun ownership among “unpopular” populations.
- Public housing residents, approximately 3 million Americans, are singled out for gun bans.
- “Gun sweeps” by police in “high crime neighborhoods” whereby vehicles and “pedestrians who meet a specific profile that might indicate they are carrying a weapon” are searched are becoming popular, and are being studied by the U.S. Department of Justice as “Operation Ceasefire."
That has nothing to do with today's gun debate.
DeleteLet's see, a group of angry men brandishing guns for political purposes. Where have I seen this before?? Oh, yes, in all sorts of third world countries, where they were called violent extremists.
ReplyDeleteI see no difference.
Compare here: http://pinterest.com/pin/251638697901521256/
Baldr, they were called violent extremists because they were ... in fact ... violent. Oftentime killing unarmed people. You have shit for brains for comparing the two.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, Mike, this whole thing about us all hating Obama because we're racists is an obnoxious libel. You constantly insult us with shit like this, and then you wonder why we don't just take you at your word when we don't bow to your superior intellect. Grow up.
ReplyDeleteIf the shoe fits wear it, otherwise try to acknowledge that there's some truth to it. I never say ALL. Are you gonna tell us in your home state among your acquaintances racism does not exist or that it's so rare it plays no part in these responses to the prez?
DeleteIt douse not Mike just because we don't like him has nothing to do with race, if any thing YOU ARE! You support him on the sole grounds he's HALF black. Hell people declared open season on Bush where was the racism them huh? I guess all black who hated Bush are racist as well.
DeleteMike,
DeleteIn the past when I challenged either you or one of your co-bloggers on this, I admitted that there are some racists opposed to him. The thing is, there are also racists of various stripes on your side as well. On both sides, they're the minority.
Do I see racism in Tennessee? Yes, but it's mostly centered in a few tiny areas that the Klansmen don't leave often. When they do, things don't go well. Last time a bunch of them started driving up and down a road next to a festival, flying a Confederate flag and yelling abuse at blacks, a white guy took out their windscreen with a brick. Needless to say, they didn't come back.
There are some secret racists, as you put it, and when I come across them, I confront them about it. If they heed my rebuke, our association continues. If they don't, it ends. So far, I've only lost one friend over this--an ex from Virginia.
Finally, as you note, you never say that we're ALL racist. But if you look at your post, a straightforward reading implies that many, most, or all of us are. It's an attempt to smear the other side with generalizations, and it's a worthless, dirty trick.
I don't imply that many or most of you are racists, I say it straight out. I think anyone who says racism against blacks isn't deeply rooted in white America and still operative, although mostly hidden, is in denial.
DeleteMost of whom, exactly? Gun owners? Republicans? Gun-rights advocates who comment here? Six-fingered swordsmen who killed your father?
DeleteMikeb, whenever someone disagrees with your position, you suspect the person of racism. That, in itself, is as much a fallacy as racism is.
So basically you are saying that regardless of what we say or do that proves we're not racist, you know that deep down inside, we really are, we just hide it from ourselves and from others.
DeleteThere's no difference in saying this about white people and in a white person saying that deep down inside, Mexicans are really just prone to socialism, or that blacks, deep down inside, are prone to laziness etc.
Frankly, Mike, you've just shown that you are a racist. You're not racist against blacks to be sure. You're just a self-loathing racist against whites. The only thing that keeps your racism from being as disgusting as the whites who hate blacks is that you have arrived at your racism in a misguided reaction against past racism.
Mike, I find a few things worth noting in your post. One of them being that you imply that any disagreement with Obama is based in racism, the obvious irony being that the first gun control laws were aimed at denying blacks the right to keep and bare arms, and the fact that it appears that you seem to think its ok to attribute it to whatever cause suits you and appear to believe that you can read people's minds and know exactly what they are thinking despite you having told others that they don't know what you are thinking.MikeZ
DeleteActually, Mike, that's not what I do. I don't ascribe ANY disagreement with Obama to racism. I even coined an expression to describe what I mean, "inexplicable Obama hatred." This refers to the really over-the-top reactions or the ones that just don't make any sense.
DeleteSlow down there a minute, T. I haven't seen much from you which I would call the "inexplicable Obama hate." In my view, that would put you in the minority of gun owners or conservatives.
DeleteI'm just observing, man, and calling it like I see it.
Greg, at his most ridiculous, said: "Mikeb, whenever someone disagrees with your position, you suspect the person of racism."
DeleteFer feck's sake, Greg. Get a grip.
Mikeb, so often, when you present the positions of Republicans, gun-rights advocates, or opponents of Obama, you label them as inexplicable. They are inexplicable to you because you can't see how any rational person could disagree with you.
DeleteYou open yourself to the charge that you accuse your opponents of being racist at every opportunity. You do this by your own hyperbolic rhetoric.
Really? I count two women in the first row alone. I guess you just see what you want to see.
ReplyDeleteA group of people gather together to celebrate their common interest, and you call it racist? What if instead they had been model-train enthusiasts? Orchid growers? I don't see any sign in that picture against any race.
ReplyDeleteHere's the problem. Mikeb, people on your side insist that everything has to be about race. Those of us who wish to let the matter go are racist because we don't judge everything by race. That's bizarre reasoning.
But here's some reassurance, if you'll take it. The organizers of Gun Appreciation Day--which was celebrated by many across the nation--kicked out a white supremacist group and issued a statement that the event was open to everyone, regardless of race.
Good luck getting your side to acknowledge that.
This picture was taken right before someone yelled that McDonald's was offering a two-for-one on french fries. The crowd waddled off.
ReplyDeleteYou were there, Goldilocks? Thanks for showing up to express your appreciation for guns.
DeleteOf course there were no black folks at these rallies, they aren't hunters.
ReplyDeleteOf course there were no black folks at these rallies, they're to shiftless and lazy to attend.
Of course there were no black folks at these rallies, because black people are racist.
I'm just testing the waters to see if I can come up with a stupider comment than Mikeb's.
orlin sellers