They were selling this shirt at Glenn Beck’s weekend God-Damn-Boree:

. . so I checked my Bizarro closet, and darned if I didn’t have it:

Supporters of Alaska’s Joe Miller at the Bear Paw festival:

In the Senate campaign fight of his life, John McCain this weekend:

We’ll continue… I’ll continue to support the military and our bases and the men and women who are there and the thousands of employees, including our people over in Mesa that make the Apache helicopter and down at Raytheon that make these wonderful missiles and Intel that’s doing such a great job in employing so many people that I’ve supported for so many years,” he said.

Wingnut blogger Confederate Yankee: he’s not just a gun nut. He’s also a beggar. He was hoping you’d buy him a scope for his new assault rifle — why? Because he has a blog. On the internet.

As you know, I just got a new rifle last week, a Bravo Machine Co. Mid-16 Mod 2.

Pretty impressive, isn’t it?

One thing several of you recommended in the comments of the post about that new rifle is that I should invest in some “bling” in the form of of optics or other functional enhancements. I am completely down with that… but I’m not made of money, either.

So here’s my request:

If you enjoy Confederate Yankee (or like some of the other writing I’ve done), consider hitting the “Donate” button in the right nav bar. A few dollars here and there adds up, and I’d greatly appreciate it.

Cost a few hundred bucks, but he’s not made of money. You are.

Wait — yes. Yes, there is!

Over at Tucker Carlson’s wingnut site, The Daily Caller, they picked up an article from the Charlotte Observer: “In North Carolina you can let your gun show”

With the Observer article ran a photo [below] of a man openly carrying a pistol: ‘Eric Shuford Jr., 67, of Cary typically keeps his Russian 9 mm Makarov sidearm with him from the time he wakes up . .’

But in Tucker’s online fishwrap, it came appended with a different image:

A shocking image, really, one to question the editor’s taste and sanity, to say nothing of his pro-gun activism. For that photo is maybe the most famous open-carry activist image of all time, burnished in our memories by violent history.

The woman there, Meleanie Hain, was an open-carry nut in Pennsylvania. She sued her local sheriff for a million bucks in part because of the emotional trauma she said she suffered when he revoked her permit to carry after the soccer game photos above became widely distributed. Another:

Most of the Hain brouhaha and 2nd amendment deification went down at the end of 2008. About a year later — stop me if you’ve heard this one before — in October of 2009, her unhinged husband came home and shot her dead. He then turned the beloved gun on himself, ending his life, too.

I remember it well. I wrote a post with my take on the paranoid psyches of the people involved: how the use of firepower as a crutch to lessen anxiety actually leaves you vulnerable. ‘If only Meleanie had seen that her paranoia was well-founded in the relationships she kept with paranoid gun nuts like her husband,’ one wonders. ‘If only she’d traded in her gun for some dignity and common sense . .’

Meanwhile, maybe the firearms freaks should leave her alone?

She was shot dead, Tucker.

Gun Control: The Ultimate Human Rights Violation
by A.W.R. Hawkins
06/03/2010

. . and one thing all human rights activists are perpetually ready to jettison is the right Americans enjoy in keeping and bearing arms.

Ironically, this right, summarily stated in the 2nd Amendment, should be the lynchpin of any honest pursuit of human rights. Thomas Jefferson made this clear when he equated a government-backed prohibition against defending one’s self with a government-backed denial of “the most basic of nature’s rights.”

Thomas Jefferson sure as hell didn’t equate, say or write anything like that. You, sir, are a big fucking liar. I said that. It’s nothing more than the motto of a gun-nut website: RKBA.

When one reads Jefferson’s statement in light of his many writings on nature’s laws and the benefits of private gun ownership . .

. . GAH. Sure, I’ll take a crack at that. On the 99th of Horseshituary, two-millie-vanillion-and-bazoolie.

. . it’s clear he was implying that the denial of the right to self-defense with a firearm is essentially a denial of one of the core aspects of what it means to be human.

Not gonna back down from this total bullcrap, eh? Don’t give a fuck if the world thinks you’re publicly demonstrating the brains and integrity of a thief? Awesome.

So, if I decided against having a gun, wouldn’t it be essentially the same problem? One of self-denial, but the same disaster? T’would be a “denial of one of the core aspects of what it means to be human”? Hmm, that sort of cement-headed logic just doesn’t sound like Thomas Jefferson. Sounds like an overwrought web-logger who makes shit up because, well, he doesn’t know what else to do.

By the way, what it means to be human would probably entail experiences like communicating through language, feeling empathy for others and coming to self-consciousness. I don’t see how owning a gun compares, it’s just a fancy tool.

In other words, gun control actually steals part of our humanity.

How much worse of a human rights violation can exist than one that actually separates the “human” from the “rights”?

What a comedian. ‘You took my bullet ejaculator! I’ve been reduced to scratching fleas and humping the vacuum cleaner! WOOF!’

Hawkins also believes that any ‘right’ he deserved that someone messed with would be a “Human Rights Violation!” If you gave him a jaywalking ticket, he’d scream “I have the right to cross the street! This citation is a Human Rights Violation!” Screw the crosswalk! Call The Hague!

None of this is hard to understand if we just imagine a woman who lives alone, and is being stalked by a dangerous man. She goes to a gun store to buy a handgun with which to protect herself, but because she lives in Chicago, Mayor Daley will not allow her to purchase a gun. Thus she goes home, and hopes the lock on her door will hold.

When he’s ready, the stalker becomes an intruder who breaks the door open, assaults the woman, and then leaves with a smile on his face.

Join my ‘I Like Rape’ Facebook page!

After reflecting on the matter he realizes the woman has no means with which to defend herself, so he goes back for more, and in time, as his callousness increases, he goes back more frequently. He knows the woman is helpless to stop him because she has been denied that “most basic of nature’s rights.”

No, she is helpless to stop him because:
1.) ‘She’ is clearly your twink blow up doll.
2.) ‘He’ has the keys to his own fucking apartment.
3.) ‘He’ is you.

In this scenario, how long would it be before the woman felt less and less like a woman and more and more like a dog? How long would it be before she had a thorough understanding of what Jefferson meant when he coupled gun control with the denial of a core aspect of what it means to human?

WELL, let’s ask her:

” . .grrrRRROWRRRRRrrrrrrrRRRROOOWWWRRR . . “

WHOA! DOWN SCOOBY!

. . it won’t be long till you feel like the woman who sat in her apartment staring at the door, hoping the lock would hold up under pressure because it was the only line of defense she had against her assailant.

Gun control could just be the ultimate human rights violation.

And if we ever give up our guns in this great nation, we will ultimately give up our humanity.

Because we gun nuts are a bunch of assclowns. We believe the world is out to get us, when, in fact, no one really gives a fuck. Hell, I only know, like, 11 people. Nonetheless, as long as my church pastor keeps whispering in my ear that the devil has a big wiener and is hot to cornhole my soul, I’ll get more ammo.

Like when you get fired. Or when your ex-wife wins custody of the daughter you’ve been obsessed with. Or when your girlfriend threatens to leave you, or when she doesn’t, or when she’s thinking it but isn’t telling you.

Or when some cats attack you or come near you when nobody’s looking, like when you’re bored and playing with an empty sack and the neighborhood cats come around the neighborhood, or when you’re out in a field with a wriggling sack full of the neighborhood cats.

Like also when that tabby came within feet of my TeeVee. Sure, it was on the other side of the sliding glass door, but I waited too long and now I probably need a new TeeVee. I definitely need a new sack, what a mess.

OH YEAH, the 2008 crisis. What?!

When I pull my gun out and aim it at someone in the vicinity, it gives my family hope. Hope that I don’t shoot that librul neighbor I’ve been mumbling about for 15 years. And hope that I don’t then turn the gun on them when they know damn well that I swearta god mummermimmallbimblebumble . . .

1.) Put your ammo in your pistol. I can’t stress enough the need to make your gun shoot the bullets you have. If it will take all one hundred rounds you have stockpiled in your closet, good. If it will take the one hundred thousand rounds you have stockpiled in the shed, better. If it will take all one hundred million rounds you and your neighbors have stockpiled up and down the block, that would be best. Because your neighbors will now be unable to shoot you before you shoot them, you will have a needed edge in the upcoming crisis that someone, namely you, will precipitate.

Do not put your bullets in your dreams, meatloaf or children unless, you know.

2.) Shoot your ammo. Don’t stockpile it.

3.) In the event your gun should jam, throw your ammo. If you can somehow get it inside the mewling sack-invader, that would be recommended. If you can beat a person badly enough, say with a stick, to open up large wounds, pull the ammo out of your pockets and sheds and squish it into the wound, taking care to aim it away from you. Failing that, roll the person on his side. Then beat the wound with your stick.

I can only assume Confederate Yankee serially spent plenty of ‘alone time’ in the nearest Confederate Condo Crapcloset after this post. Those gunpowder-and-ballistics Palin pics surely are now spotty and plenty worse for wear, assuming they’re not just stuck together like stacks of rice paper mats after a corn syrup monsoon.

Labor union SEIU turned up the heat on the business flaks and banksters by staging protests directly in front of their homes. They realized that bringing a few hundred people to demonstrate outside the mega-skyscrapers of the powerful and insulated results in nothing much effective, so they changed tactics.

The scene is certainly more aggressive, and its politics are controversial. Huffington Post reported on the cacophony this way:

Class Warfare: Hundreds Protest Outside Bankers’ Houses In DC
First Posted: 05-16-10 08:00 PM | Updated: 05-17-10 05:46 PM

Huge raucous crowds converged outside bank employees’ houses on Sunday afternoon to demand banks stop lobbying against Wall Street reform.

“Bank of America: bad for America!” shouted community leaders outside the house of Bank of America deputy general counsel Gregory Baer.

The Chicago-based grassroots organization National People’s Action, in coordination with the SEIU, bused more than 700 workers from 20 states to Baer’s neighborhood, one of the wealthiest corners of Washington. The action kicks off several days of protests targeting K Street for lobbyists’ role in financial reform.

Baer’s son was in the house at the time and got scared, though no harm or destruction resulted. The group apparently packed up and moved to another bigwig’s house. Confederate Yankee, however, caught an electric whiff off the fear and fired back:

It’s All Fun For Them, Until One of Their Little Unionized Terrorists Get Shot
Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:07 PM

I was offline most of the weekend, spending the bulk of Saturday and Sunday in an NRA Personal Protection Outside the Home course with a class filled with NRA instructors. All of us were concealed carry permit holders, and all had previously taken the Personal Protection in the Home course (more on the courses at another time, perhaps).

As a result, I didn’t get a chance until today to read about Nina Easton’s account of a SEIU/NPA mob action that terrified the teen-aged son of a Bank of America lawyer, who was alone when the mob poured out of 14 buses and stormed their home . .

You can tell where this is going, right?

If a homeowner in such a situation felt that a chanting mob banging forcefully on door [sic] and windows was attempting to break into the home, they would be fully justified under the laws of many states if the [sic] decided to start firing a gun through the door into the tightly packed mob behind it in order to stop what they felt was a felony home invasion in progress.

Now that would be the felony home invasion of all-time. When the massive group pours out of a whole bunch of buses, wearing the same colorful shirts, carrying signs, marching up and down the street and yelling cliches through their bullhorns, you can be sure they’re there to sneak up on the front door and stampede it if you inexplicably answer the doorbell. “WHOOOIIIZZIIITT?” Wait for the 110-decibel pleas of “SSSSHHHHHH!!” coming through the hand-helds, bouncing through the neighborhood. Then you can tiptoe to the door and brace for the worst.

Gotta admit, it’s a brilliant strategy. After they’ve tied you up and taken all your jewelry, long after they’ve skulked away in the bright light of day, disappeared in an elephant migration of diesel-spewing buses, how will you ever identify them? There are hundreds of them, dammit. Of course, you might just tell the police you’re being robbed — they are, after receiving all the calls from angry neighbors, standing there monitoring the whole thing. Nonetheless, go ahead, pull out your rifle and pour a couple clips worth of high-velocity rounds through the door at the “tightly packed mob behind it.”

This is not an extreme nor unusual statute, but a simple acknowledgment of castle doctrine and stand your ground laws applied to a bizarre situation.

Now there’s some logic: it’s a bizarre situation, I feel scared, time to blow your noggin off. Unless you mean after the fact, then I would agree: indiscriminately and blindly opening fire upon a crowd of protesters in your front yard would be a bizarre situation, AKA “wholesale slaughter.” Incidentally, considering the unarmed hundreds of them, good luck convincing anybody that tactic constituted a reasonable solution to your problem.

No jury on earth would convict a family trapped by 500 thugs screaming through bullhorns and causing them to reasonably suspect that their lives were in danger from a mob they thought was breaking down his door, and it’s doubtful there would even be a prosecution in many jurisdictions.

On second thought, that might be true, knowing what some places in the country are like. Doesn’t mean it’s legal or justified or that you wouldn’t be a notorious mass-murderer of working class types. But then, you’d also become a celebrated anti-union Bernie Goetz for the far-right, so your ticket would be eternally punched. Hmm, this is an even better Confederate Yankee fantasy than I’d originally figured.

Barack Obama’s comfort with thug politics and love of strong-arm behavior may get some of his supporters killed one day, and he’ll have no one to blame but his own tactics and allies.

Grab some Jergens and go satisfy yourself, Yankee. God fear monkey nuts.

They don’t tax their chiffon nighties, but they do tax my flak jackets. They don’t tax their citrus perfumes, but they do tax my tabasco B.O. They don’t tax their faggody Euro-bidets, but they do tax the number twos I leave in the swamps. A doody duty — what’s next, you potty lie-berals? HUH?

They don’t tax their frisbees, but they do tax my hand grenades. They don’t tax their jelly dildos, but they do tax my napalm and bayonets. They don’t tax their rolling papers, all marijuana-stained and left lying around for the kids to see hairy abominations of Jesus, but they do tax the heads I’ve lopped off and left on pikes to rot in the sun. Fucking war-horror levy, DAMN you skeert-a-maggot commies.

They don’t tax their baking, but they do tax my instinct to barbecue animals. They don’t tax their spaying and neutering, but they do tax my skinning and gutting. They don’t tax their pet rescues, but they do tax the way I deliver death. They don’t tax their peace and quiet, but they do tax my powers, as my personal rattle makes worlds collide. Humanist shitbags.

Was Timothy McVeigh a dangerous right-wing anti-government extremist that eerily and disturbingly pre-dated the angry right-wingers we see today, as Rachel Maddow wonders? Or was he a lone druggie whackjob bearing no resemblance to the current spate of law-abiding protesters, as Ann Coulter kids?

How about we go to Tim McVeigh’s actual words? Let’s see who’s closer to being right about any connection between him and the current anti-government types. Okay?

On taxes:

Taxes are a joke. Regardless of what a political candidate “promises,” they will increase. More taxes are always the answer to government mismanagement. They mess up. We suffer. Taxes are reaching cataclysmic levels, with no slowdown in sight… Is a Civil War Imminent? Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn’t come to that. But it might.

Guns:

The government is afraid of the guns people have because they have to have control of the people at all times. Once you take away the guns, you can do anything to the people. You give them an inch and they take a mile. I believe we are slowly turning into a socialist government. The government is continually growing bigger and more powerful and the people need to prepare to defend themselves against government control.

The Constitution being the source for righteousness and rebellion:

Those who betray or subvert the Constitution are guilty of sedition and/or treason, are domestic enemies and should and will be punished accordingly.

It also stands to reason that anyone who sympathizes with the enemy or gives aid or comfort to said enemy is likewise guilty. I have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic and I will. And I will because not only did I swear to, but I believe in what it stands for in every bit of my heart, soul and being.

I know in my heart that I am right in my struggle, Steve. I have come to peace with myself, my God and my cause. Blood will flow in the streets, Steve. Good vs. Evil. Free Men vs. Socialist Wannabe Slaves. Pray it is not your blood, my friend.

Maddow wins that one, hands down. That is a remarkable pre-imitation of the people we’ve been seeing for months now, as far as words alone go.

But it doesn’t stop there. Maddow was right to point out how bizarre, if not downright disgusting, it is for the Second Amendment March-ers to have picked April 19th for their day of symbolism and protest. It is a day far better known to Americans for the Oklahoma City bombing tragedy than for the anniversary of Lexington and Concord.

And gun nuts are fully aware of the significance of April 19th — it being the anniversary of the end of the Waco Branch Davidian siege, resulting in a fire and mass-killing 50 days after ATF agents raided the compound to seize the cultists’ guns. That was the day McVeigh chose to strike back at the government:

1993 Waco siege and Gun shows

In 1993, [McVeigh] drove to Waco, Texas during the Waco Siege to show his support. At the scene, he distributed pro-gun rights literature and bumper stickers, such as “When guns are outlawed, I will become an outlaw” . .

For the five months following the Waco Siege, McVeigh worked at gun shows and handed out free cards printed up with Lon Horiuchi’s name and address, “in the hope that somebody in the Patriot movement would assassinate the sharpshooter.” He wrote hate mail to the sniper, suggesting that “what goes around, comes around,” and later considered putting aside his plan to target the Murrah Building to target Horiuchi, or a member of his family instead.

McVeigh spent more time on the gun show circuit, traveling to 40 of the 50 states and visiting about 80 gun shows in all. McVeigh found that the further west he went, the more anti-government sentiment he encountered, at least until he got to what he called “The People’s Socialist Republic of California.” McVeigh sold survival items and copies of The Turner Diaries. One author said:

“In the gun show culture, McVeigh found a home. Though he remained skeptical of some of the most extreme ideas being bandied around, he liked talking to people there about the United Nations, the federal government and possible threats to American liberty.”

For Coulter to pretend that the day is wholly irrelevant to the paranoid second amendment movement is disingenuous at the very least. Not that that’s odd territory for Coulter, as she begins the post this way . .

And just where, Ann, was the pre-cursor to Timothy McVeigh? She’s acting like the bombing either never happened or could never happen again. How stupid and reckless would we be to assume that it was all an astronomical fluke? It happened, we know who did it, and he looks awfully familiar.

Doubling up on holidays, what a novel concept:

Utah state senator wants to create holiday honoring ‘gun pioneer’ on MLK Day.

Utah State Sen. Mark Madsen (R) is introducing legislation to create a holiday honoring John Moses Browning — the Utah native and “gun pioneer” who founded the Browning Arms company — on the same day as Martin Luther King Day. Browning’s birthday is believed to be around Jan. 21, so “Madsen proposes doubling up Browning and King”:

“I see them as complimentary,” [Madsen] said. Browning is known for developing a variety of guns, including the gas-operated machine gun. Madsen said he plans to meet with the NAACP to discuss his proposal.

“We’ll see if they can take it in the spirit it’s intended,” Madsen said. [...]

“Guns keep peace,” [state Senate Majority Leader Scott] Jenkins [R] said. “I kind of like the idea of making his birthday a holiday. I’m all over that.”

Salt Lake NAACP President Jeanetta Williams said she was “furious” about the idea. “It is not acceptable for the name John M. Browning to jointly share the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday,” she said. “Dr. King was assassinated by a man using a gun. John M. Browning was a gun manufacturer . . “

Yeah, peculiar idea.

How about we double up Utah’s Pioneer Day with a “Native American Day” celebrating the people who discovered Salt Lake City a couple thousand years before the Mormons?

Or, instead we double MLK Day with “No More ‘Mark of Cain‘ Day” celebrating the Mormon Church’s 1978 reversal of previous policies denying Blacks from participating in their most sacred rituals and the priesthood because of their evil, black skin?

Then we can move “Browning Day” over to “Joseph Smith Day”. He was shot to death just outside of prison.

Lest anybody get carried away with b-movie plots as to why such a horrible event is newsworthy, I thought I’d put down my own take on this before it takes on the inevitable tabloid life of its own.

Not reasons why Hain’s murder was newsworthy:
–Not because it was some ‘live-and-die-by-the-sword’ thing. Although it’s generally true that carrying around firearms ups the potential for gun violence, I don’t see that as being what was going on.

–Not that she was ‘crazy’, a thrill-seeker, and that she took chances that ended up taking her life. She seems to have been a pretty down-to-Earth type.

–Not that gun nuts want to do gun violence, and that she surrounded herself with some itchy types who just gave in to their fantasy of shooting things. Although it sorta seems that way.

No–the reason it’s newsworthy is because it illustrates how gun nuts honestly feel they need guns. Just try to get into a discussion with them about how the world would probably be better off without all the millions of weapons we have around, and you’ll see how desperately they feel that need. The emotional tone goes right through the roof. For them, life itself seems impossible to fathom without weapons.

Why? I’ll tell you why. Because these folks labor with personal weaknesses that they feel can only be propped up by carrying around deadly force. They feel very vulnerable and can’t find any way to move forward in life without some serious firepower by their side. Can’t stand to go on without a better defense than they can strictly psychologically provide for themselves. So they turn to the quick fix of guns.

That’s the essential story. So the ‘weakness’ and the gun walk hand in hand together in perpetuity in American life, by the millions. And the gun nut never has to examine his mindset, and his ‘defender’, the gun, is passionately loved and obsessed over. That’s what was going on here, and that’s what’s frequently going on with the gun-loving Americans I’ve come to know.

But it’s no habit from another planet, right? Isn’t that exactly the case in our wars? Aren’t our soldiers taught to service and trust their guns? Isn’t then your gun just about your best friend?

Yes, it is. But, then, there, it’s understandable. Your ‘defect’ there is just your mortality. Your horrible, violent death is the avowed goal (as it was in the case of WWII) of perhaps millions of people. You’d better be well-armed and trained, and you’d better not sleep much.

But America is not a gun nut’s overseas war. America is their own hometowns, their own communities, not a foxhole behind enemy lines. The truth is that, here in America, one’s need for serious firepower in order to defend yourself is just above zero. Unless you live in one of those urban war zones or some awful place overrun with violent lunatics, you pretty much don’t need a gun. Argue whatever you like, but that’s the stone cold truth.

I live in a far more dangerous place than probably 95% of the current gun nuts live–Los Angeles. A guy was shot dead in my alley. The best friend of my roommate was intentionally run over and killed by an infuriated driver. But I absolutely do not need a gun to protect myself and go on surviving in the big city. I easily manage without it, day after day, year after year.

And yet, hundreds of thousands of other, less environmentally threatened Americans swear that they really, really have to have a gun. Especially a handgun, the easily concealed weapon best suited for shooting human beings in close quarters urban combat. They don’t feel right without one, and they freak out just considering living without it.

Clearly, the gun has become a psychological crutch for people to manage to go on. And I’m sure that’s why Meleanie Hain foolishly, openly carried a Glock to a soccer game for 5 year old girls. Annoyed parents called the Sheriff, the Sheriff thought it was inappropriate and yanked her concealed weapons permit, she filed with the local court, and she became a 2nd amendment hot celebrity when she got her CCW permit back.

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