So how about some content for this thread? Once again, thanks so much to everyone who came out to celebrate the holidays with us last night. It really is fun to see all of you, and so great to know that we have such generous readers.
Everyone will have the shootings in CT on their minds for awhile now. I see lots of energy about pushing for a conversation about guns in our so-called civilized society. What I do know is that we won’t be able to claim the mantle of being “civilized” until the lives of our children are more valuable than our guns. It is odd that we are more ready to defend the right to “bear arms” at the expense of any right to the safety of your kids. That said, this is an interesting Twitter exchange with Rupert Murdoch:
The school shootings were not with automatic weapons, but the point is pretty clear — Murdoch could turn his entire propaganda machine towards this issue and make a real difference.
Last, I read an amazing article that does a better job than I’ve even been able to do in articulating just how silly the idea of keeping arms against the “tyranny of the government” is — you are out gunned by any stretch of the imagination and you are subject to a level of surveillance that will nip any of that in the bud, anyway. Your well-regulated militia will not kick anybody’s ass:
As a result, Americans maintain the belief that they will still be able to reform and/or defeat government on its soil using “The Second Amendment.” This clause of the Bill of Rights makes way for Americans to maintain armaments much in the same spirit of 1775, such that its citizens might once again rise up with muskets whenever necessary to Defeat Tyranny on Their Soil.
There is one major problem with this dangerously outdated assumption: the chasm between government weaponry and civilian weaponry is comically large. Like, from here to Venus large. So large that your defense of arming every schizophrenic and bipolar douchebag with AR-15s because you want to “prevent tyranny from taking root” is absurdly, ridiculously stupid.
Please go read the whole thing.
What interests you today?