April 20, 2007


Ribbons on trees are draped in fog on the Drill Field on the campus of Virginia Tech Friday, April 20, 2007.

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Posted by maru at 4/20/2007 11:46:00 PM

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry, but ex-post-facto ribbons and tears and tributes and eulogies mean nothing but minor grief relief (after all, how much can that help relieve the loss of young family memeber or friend?) if they're not followed by some concrete action! If we as a society don't want to REALLY stop these senseless massacres (and who the fuck really cares what the mindset of the individual/s was when he/they were carrying out their demented actions?) with senseable gun laws -- where a person has to show a real valid need for a gun (not the phony NRA crapola, or the fallacious 'self-defense' shit) -- lets just continue to let all the gun-nuts control the legislation. Then we will KNOW what the future will be... MORE daily killings of us 'anonymous' people, MORE celebrity assasinations, MORE political assasinations, MORE domestic massacres. I was shocked when the Texas Tower shooter killed 16 students back in the 1960's; I was shocked when JFK, MLK, & RFK were killed; I was shocked when John Lennon was killed and Selena & others; I was shocked by Columbine and the predecessors/followers of it; I'm now saddened by the Virgina Tech massacre, but I'm not shocked anymore. I'm only shocked by the continued lack of brains that the people of this country show towards firearms -- we facilitate efficient violence by letting sadistic 'sportsmen' (what else can you call people who kill for entertainment?) and target shooters whine loud enough to drown out sensible lawmaking.

9:22 PM
Anonymous said...

Excellent post, big em. I've gone beyond shock to inexpressible sorrow.

6:53 PM
Anonymous said...

Big 'em, ever live WAY out in the country? I mean, like have to drive for hours to reach a stop sign remote? The Native Americans where I once lived? Called it "Out where the bear fuck the antelope."

Ever have armed people come out of the forest, walking towards your house?

I'm *guessing* at that point, you might wish you hadn't got turned down by the rightwing republican you appointed to interview you about your worthiness to own a gun for protection: You Liberal you. He read your posts at WTF is it now? No gun for you, you godless heathen. But Charlton Heston and Ted Nugent & wife? They are GOOD 'mericans, so stay armed.

Ya see the weakness of your post?

In 1995, after being retired from his 30 year job at United Air Lines for 6 months, and after being remarried in retirement after losing his wife of 46 years three years earlier, my father was shot to death while on his first vacation in his new RV.

By a man, also retired, he and his new wife had been out drinking with all evening at a restaurant and bar in Kentucky. Out in the country, good neighborhood, on a country manor, with an older gentleman. A retired United pilot.

Big 'em, I remember all the same things you do. The Tower shooting, right up until the VT madness.

Why is it you are all of a sudden "ban guns", yet had no reaction to the msm story recently about the revelation there were CIA agents at the hotel where Bobby was shot? CIA, photographed there. CIA agents that were supposedly in Europe at the time. Then, the news cycle dies, and everyone is shocked, SHOCKED!! I tell ya, that crazy people act crazy sometimes.

See, I worry more about things I can change, if people become aware, open their eyes, instead of performing Fox News and CNN type hype. They do it perfectly well without assistance, Big 'em.

So, sane folks should be told their Constitutional Right to Bear Arms should be forfeited (no, don't even fucking tell me I should have to go before some fucking "authority" somewhere to "justify" my "need" to own a weapon, because a crazy man shot somebody somewhere), and there would be no repercussions of creeping fascism, unarming the citizens? Please.

You seem to misunderstand what the Second Amendment means, how the language evolved, or you wouldn't state such. Yes, it says "Well-regulated militia".

Because, while folks like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington warned against the danger of a large standing army has on liberty, they always recognized the need to have every citizen armed. Against the Government. Our own government, because they KNEW. Open eyes, see present reality of today's US Government.

And, they also recognized that having some bunch uptown form one militia, and someone downtown forming another, that you'd soon have armed warlords fighting each other, so they stated militias need to be well-regulated.

Get it? That is why the language seems so clumsy there. But perfectly clear, in the right context, the context of letters Thomas and George actually wrote regarding this Right, for us to read now.

I can not say for certain what my father, a gun owner (no handguns though) would say if he could speak. Who could? I'm not a Fox Madame Clio crystal ball talking head know-it-all.

I'm a liberal know-it-all.

I would guess he would say "Fry the fucker." (He got probation, reduced to involuntary manslaughter).

I do not think he would have said "Make alcohol illegal, and ban handguns/guns from citizens."

Just my guess. He liked his Jack Daniels. And lived through a failed prohibition on Liquor.

Doesn't Sweden have a law stating it's citizens must be armed?
How's their murder rate with guns?

Perhaps it is not guns. Perhaps it is culture.

No, I don't. But I sure want Karl Rove and Alberto (I'll freakin' torture ya!) Gonzales thinking I do. I hope they fantasize farang has one of those automatic 50 caliber steel penetrating missilerocketfuckingguns that kill neocons, in my bedroom.

But, that's just me.

You be a good citizen, and disarm, 'kay?

9:36 AM
Anonymous said...

Farang -
1.) First of all, in case you hadn't noticed, we in the US live in an urban industrialized society where 79% of the people live in urban areas (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/census/cps2k.htm) so our laws DO have to reflect that urban demographic. I did grow up in rural Wisconsin, thank you, and the most problem I had with people 'walking out of the forests toward my house' was with hunters! You know, the people who like to kill for entertainment? In fact one of them even took a potshot with his air-rifle at some cats on our porch, sportsman that he was.
2.) I'm sorry to hear that your father was killed by someone. Since you introduced it though, I suspect he would've had a better chance of surviving if his attacker didn't have a firearm. It sounds like it was almost accidental, where somebody gets drunked up and starts waving a gun around not meaning to shoot someone but his finger slips and someone's dead. And it's basically irrelevant as to what happens to a murderer once he/she is removed from society -- it never brings back the victim(s) or even gives much solace to the aggrieved family or friends.
3.) I'm not sure what the CIA's presence around Bobby Kennedy's assassination has to do with gun control, but it sure would've been nice if Sirhan-Sirhan would've been prevented from obtaining a firearm.
4.) Since you seem prone to conspiracy theories, you should know that Justice Warren Burger wrote that "....the Second Amendment... has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word 'fraud', on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime. The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that state armies - the militia - would be maintained for the defense of the state. The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she desires."
- Warren Burger, former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice, Parade Magazine, 1/14/90" (hint: he's talking about the good 'ol NRA)
The Supreme Court had decided in at least THREE(3) separate decisions - 1939, 1969, & 1980 that THIS was the true interpretation on the 2nd Amendment -- that 'militias' refer to National Guards, not some loose conglomoration of gun lovers.
5.) Sweden, like virtually all European countries, has very strong handgun control laws. Their gun murder rate in 2004 4.1 people per 100,000 vs the US 378 people per 100,000.
6.) Yes, it is partially violence in our culture. And guns facilitate that violence to a high degree. Why do you think that private citizens are banned from owning bazookas, SAMs, cannons, nuclear weapons, etc and explosives are highly regulated? Because the odd idiot who would get ahold of this stuff could kill scores of people. If plastics explosives were as easy to get as guns, shit we'd have 'Lockerbie/Pan Am 103's every day of the year, and Oklahoma City bombings every other day!
7.) Do you REALLY think the US military -- with all their advanced weaponry (that we spend our $300+ Billion/yr on) is at all afraid of what weapons you might have in your possession? Did you see what happened at Waco or Ruby Ridge? They can just run a tank or two over to your place and flatten you if they wanted. Or they can send an unmanned drone to kill you, or a cruise missile. Your handgun, rifle, shotgun, etc doesn't deter them at all - - they'd use you as target practice.
Yeah, I'll stay gun-free, thanks. Always have and never personally had a problem that a gun would've been useful for.

12:59 AM

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