Gun Nuts Media

Last night after a lot of the hubbub about the new bill before the House (HR2640) which has passed in a voice vote, I made the mistake of settling in and watching the CBS evening news. In case you’ve been living in a cave in Botswana (is Botswana still a country? I can’t keep up with those African republics – ed.) the CBS news is hosted by none other than Katie Couric. Although I’ve never expressed here, I really can’t stand Katie Couric; not only is she extremely anti-gun, but she’s also just smug.

Newsbusters has a great summary of her piece on HR 2640. In a startling display of fair and balanced reporting, Wayne LaPierre from the NRA got exactly once sentence of airtime; Paul Helmke from the Brady Campaign To Take Your Stuff got an entire on camera interview.

Honestly, it was probably the most self-congratulatory thing I’d ever seen. While in a recent blog post the Campaign gives a little credit to the NRA, you wouldn’t have known it from watching CBS last night. The best part was this quote from Helmke:

There’s still a lot more that needs to be done and I hope that Wayne LaPierre and the NRA will follow through on the statements they’ve made today and let’s strengthen the background checks. Background checks work and if we can get them applicable to all sales of guns, then we can make all of our communities safer.

It’s a great quote, because it says volumes about how the Brady Bunch really feels. It starts with a subtle smear of the NRA, implying that they (the NRA) doesn’t actually want to strengthen background checks. Then he nicely segues into the Brady’s favorite whipping horse, gun shows. Although he never says “gun shows”, the “all sales of guns” means “private transfers at those evil gun shows”.

I’m still supporting this new bill, despite the media spin. Like a lot of people, I think that we gain from it; and we don’t actually lose anything that isn’t already a law. I’d just like to point out that while the Brady’s, McCarthy, and everyone else is playing nice right now, their goals haven’t changed.

“…or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” A conversation I was having with Sebastian reminded me of this quote from the esteemed Mr. Franklin at the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

While ol’ Ben was more referring to the need for solidarity amongst the colonies in the face of the war with England; the sentiment behind his quote applies today, especially to gun owners.

There are two examples of this that I can think of off the top of my head, one positive and one negative. The positive example is actually that of Jim Zumbo, who you may remember said some bad things about black rifles. This caused him to be castigated by the community at large, even people like me who don’t own black rifles. Since that time, Zumbo has repented, recanted, and has generally been welcomed back into the fold by the community.

I see that as a positive example because the gun-owning community at large was able to move past the bad things he had said and onto the fact that Jim is still a valuable advocate for the right to keep and bear arms. So, bully for us.

On the flip side of that coin are people who only care for their “niche” in the shooting community. This would the black rifle aficionado who doesn’t care about the plinker, or the muzzleloader who doesn’t care about the handgunner, etc. At times, it seems as though we don’t care about some particularly onerous piece of legislation as long as it doesn’t interfere with our particular portion of the sport.

I don’t suppose I’d have to explain why that’s so dangerous; it’s even more dangerous when that same “turf-war” mentality manifests itself on an organization level. I like the NRA; I don’t always support their actions, and I wish they’d send me less mail, but they generally act in the best interests of law-abiding gun owners. Similarly, I like the GOA, I feel like it’s good to have a less moderate voice for gun owners for the times that the NRA drops the ball.

I do not like it when the GOA (or anyone else for that matter) goes after the NRA in an effort to prove who loves the 2nd Amendment more. Take for example this new bill before the House, HR 2640. The GOA has been lambasting the NRA for their support of this bill for a while, despite the fact that the relevant text just because available yesterday.

What frustrates me is that the other side has all their factions working together. The people that want to ban .50 BMG rifles play nice with the people who want to ban all guns who play nice with the people who just want to ban handguns, and so it goes.

The problem isn’t even individual gun owners; I think that most of us recognize that a loss for one of the niches of our hobby is a net loss for everyone. Sure, like I said above there are people that don’t care; but they’re relatively in the minority. If the other team is all playing together, it might behoove us to do the same.

Robyn Ringler has another anti-gun editorial up, this one about (surprise) .50BMG rifles. Then there is the anti-gun show “study” by Prof. Wintermute from UC Davis. Some guy in Kansas is championing Bloomberg as a voice of sanity on the gun control issue.

To crib a bit from The Good Book, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” I swear, I’ve read all of these anti-gun editorials before. I mean, they all consist of the same old tired lines, “it’s for the children”, or “terrorists will use .50 cal rifles”, or “gun shows give guns to criminals”. Honestly, can’t you people think of anything new?

Now, I don’t want you to get the impression that don’t think we should be actively refuting this sort of thing; we most definitely should. Most people don’t realize that you can’t really shoot down a jet liner with a .50 BMG rifle; it falls to us to make sure that the actual facts get out there.

But to the anti-gunners out there – I know this is asking a lot, but do you think that you could come up with some new material? I mean, these are the same arguments that I used against people when I was 19. I know you people are creative, I mean just look at some of the fiction you’ve rounded up to use against law-abiding gun owners. But this whole “repeating the same arguments” stuff has got to stop. You’re like that 8 year old on the playground, who when confronted with facts just jams his fingers in his eyes and yells louder so he can’t hear you.

If it weren’t for the fact that some people actually believe this crap, it’d just be sad.

I heard about this on Mike & Mike on ESPN this morning; I would have put this post up sooner but I had to actually work.

Here’s a link to the actual story from Forbes. That’s right, it’s about makeup products for men. Now, if you had asked me five, or even two years ago if I thought that something like this would actually catch on, I’d have said “no way in hell”.

Walk into megastores like Sephora or Macy’s and you’ll find a variety of masculine beauty products including bronzer and face masks. Clarin’s Self-Tanning Gel for Men, for example, amps up skin color while evening out skin tone.

The issue that I see is that since the current generation of boys are having everything possible done to remove their, well, boyhood in all but the physical sense, some stupid crap like this could actually catch on.

OK, it does the job. But is manly makeup here to stay? Gilbert thinks so.

“In order to get that competitive edge, they have to look better,” she says. “They’re going to do whatever it takes–and there are products out there that can help them achieve this.”

Does anyone else remember when a good, firm handshake and the ability to actually do your job was all someone needed to get ahead in the business world? Honestly, despite the fact that I do care about my appearance (I work out, shave, and bathe); I don’t really give a shit what one of my employees looks like, as long as he or she can do their job.

You know, I’d like to think that my eventual children will rule over this upcoming generation of prissy, makeup-wearing, self-esteem filled namby-pamby children; however they’ll probably just be looked at as relics of a bygone era.

I swear, it’s stuff like this that makes me want time travel.

Honestly, I don’t feel like scouring the internet looking for this information; does anyone out there know the weight (in grains or grams) of the brass for a round of .308 as well as the weight of the brass for a round of 5.56?

Its for an article I’m working on, any help is appreciated.

By way of Sebastian, I find an interesting thread on a place called MotherTalkers about an extremely anti-gun mother being disturbed about her ex-husband offering to teach her precious little rugrat how to shoot. The 8 year old boy has been pretty effectively cowed by his mother; and staunchly refused the offer of firearms training.

I passed this thread on to Housewife, whose response can be seen here. I like her response that the mother of the child in question should probably modify her rule so that the rugrat can use guns under the supervision of the ex-husband.

I’m not going to address the flawed logic behind the “no guns” thing; despite the fact that I disagree with the mother’s position on guns, it’s her prerogative to raise her child as she pleases. I actually wanted to focus on part of this story that was sort of missed, and it’s also the part I find the most disturbing.

“NO! My mommy said that I can’t ever touch a gun and that I can’t even be around a gun!!”…My son AGAIN expressed his non-interest and inability to defy me (emphasis mine).

And that right there is the part of this that I personally find so disturbing. Admittedly, the child in the story is only 8 years old; but there’s so much here that just drops my jaw to the ground.

While that section of quotes alone is enough to write 30 posts about, I’m going to touch on one thing. How long exactly does that mother think this stage is going to last? I was an angel when I was eight; then I hit a period from the age of twelve until I was about 21 where no one would have used the word “angel” to describe me.

Based on my own subjective experience of being a boy with a mother; that poor kid is going to have one of two things happen to him. He’s either going to rebel to the point of extremes against his mother’s authority, or he’s going to grow up into a spineless “momma’s boy”. In terms of the metaphorical apron strings, they’ll either get cut with the Chainsaw of Rebellion, or they’ll be a noose around his neck.

Frankly, I’m disgusted by the whole thing. Am I making a snap judgment based off incomplete information? You bet I am. But I don’t have to stretch my imagination very far to come to the conclusion that this poor kid is going to have to choose between rebellion (go for the rebellion) or being a goddamn doormat for everyone with a spine.

It seems that Paris Hilton is back in the klink. I was repulsed and disgusted when I realized that because of her early release, I agreed with Al Sharpton on an issue; I am pleasantly surprised that she’s back in the slammer.

I would also like to confess that I rather gleefully enjoyed the hysterics she launched into when Deputy Friendly cuffed her and took her in; the 2nd set of hysterics in the actual courtroom were even better.

I fucking hate spoiled children; that’s all that she is.