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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJon Stewart: The NRA has us at the intersection of ‘open carry’ and ‘stand your ground’
Daily Show host Jon Stewart observed on Thursday that despite their brief rift, the National Rifle Association (NRA) and groups like Open Carry Texas had created a perpetual violence machine.
We are at the intersection of Open Carry Road and Stand Your Ground Place, Stewart said. So what the f*ck are we supposed to do now? According to the NRAs basic principles, you have a right to carry a weapon that may cause a reasonable person to believe they are in danger of great bodily injury. And they have a right, if they feel that way, to respond with deadly force. Its a perpetual violence machine. Its Gunfight at the Golden Corral.
Just then, he came to a realization.
Wait a minute, he said. This isnt an argument about freedom at all, is it? This whole f*cking things a business plan for arms dealers. Son of a b*tch.
VIDEO:http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/06/jon-stewart-the-nra-has-us-at-the-intersection-of-open-carry-and-stand-your-ground/
elias49
(4,259 posts)aikoaiko
(34,127 posts)...cuz they, you know, abhor gun violence.
Fortinbras Armstrong
(4,473 posts)It's that we expect one of the armed gun nuts to open fire.
Tell me, if I were to walk around, juggling hand grenades, would you be concerned for your safety? There is no basic difference between that and gun nuts insisting on toting guns everywhere they go.
Moostache
(9,895 posts)Responding with deadly force to a feeling is ludicrous. I don't give two shits about your passion for firearm ownership, but the idea that the law should provide cover for negligent homicide or paranoid fearful fools is disgusting. You can respond with a firearm without resorting to center mass targeting because you get the willys seeing a dark man or a shadow or hear creeking floor boards.
One of these morons is going to "accidentally" (and I place that in quotes because knowingly endangering a child or an innocent by-stander by hauling around an assault weapon, for absolutely no reason beyond shock value, is about as accidental as your reply is a coherent thought and not the ravings of a gun-lover masturbating with Guns and Ammo magazine in the komode) shoot someone during these exhibitions.
The video of the goober with the rifle on his back and walking through the parking lot with a toddler - on the same side of him that the rifle was pointing - should have been enough for sane people to say this is going too far into Wonderland; but, apparently the body count must also include as many by-standing or uninvolved human beings and children as possible before gun rights jerk-offs will admit the idea of arming yourself in public is a solution for violence the same way Cheesecake is a cure for Diabetes.
aikoaiko
(34,127 posts)If you don't give two shits about my interests in firearms, that fine. Gun restrictionists are losing more than winning.
Carry on.
toby jo
(1,269 posts)It's legal, so oh well?
This country wasn't built by people who said, 'it's legal, so what', when the king came afuckin.
Great post, doxydad. I agree, perpetual violence to cover their perpetual fear.
aikoaiko
(34,127 posts)I didn't say "oh well" or "so what", I said it was hard to stop.
But I do express my opinion directly to other RKBA activists and we mostly agree that open carry demonstrations in private establishments open to the public is foolish at best, and frightening to the general public at worst.
Fortinbras Armstrong
(4,473 posts)People are being killed by the sort of idiots you apparently have no problem with. THOSE are the people who deserve empathy, not the gun nuts who are endangering -- and that is the correct term -- the public at large.
The people who insist on toting their guns everywhere they go are NOT "responsible gun owners".
The United States does indeed have a colorful history of men carrying side arms to protect themselves. However, this happened principally because they were living in or traveling through areas where law enforcement was weak or non-existent (i.e., the western territories, etc.).
Many courageous lawmen dedicated their lives (and in some cases, gave them) to making this country safe enough for a person to be able to travel and go into public places without the need of a side arm. This goal was eventually accomplished, and for much of the 20th century, no one thought it necessary to take a gun to go to a restaurant or to school.
Now, the NRA and its gun-loving followers have, through sheer paranoia and heavily-funded lobbyists, helped to create a society in which it is becoming increasingly dangerous to go into the public arena to do business, travel, shop, etc. We now experience mass gun murder on a weekly basis.
This cannot continue. At some point, American society will be confronted with the choice of reining in the gun lovers or facing its own extinction. I think it's pretty clear which way that decision will go.
So enjoy winning more than losing for now - the worm shall turn.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)myrna minx
(22,772 posts)laundry_queen
(8,646 posts)It's weird to be joyful over 'winning' in this case - because as you say, it's only going to be a lose-lose for everyone in the long run. Reminds me of people in relationships who are so focused on winning the argument that they lose the relationship. That's not winning. It's absurd to talk as if 'winning' is a good thing here.
Turbineguy
(37,206 posts)If the gun nuts convince people who are not armed that they cannot go out of their houses, there will be a price to the economy.
Half-Century Man
(5,279 posts)If it ever gets on a public ballot, gun control legislation will happen. And every dink walking around open carrying will cause it to be more severe. Every mass shooting ensure more oppressive control measures.
The only choice is voluntary common sense laws now, or the loss of firearm ownership to the public later.
Choose wisely.
aikoaiko
(34,127 posts)....but not so much on the whole.
I've heard this threat before about capitulating now or deal with more severe measures later, but that doesn't seem to be a reality. Indeed if gun folks capitulate now, anti-gun folks will just want more.
For 25 years after the 1968 Gun Control Act the pendulum swung toward more restrictions, but around 1995 we started to see the pendulum swing the other way. It will swing again, but we're talking incremental changes.
Half-Century Man
(5,279 posts)I have owned firearms for the majority of my life. Subsequently, I don't want that to end.
I am also awake and listening.
A massive groundswell is going on. To ignore it is stupid. The simple fact is, the vast majority of Americans want firearms ownership controlled.
The 1968 Gun Control Act was based, at least in part, on the gun control acts passed in Germany in the 30's. RKBA people saw that as the start of a slippery slope to the loss of ownership rights. This was an over reaction at that time, and the reason they are so poised for action today.
Just after the assignation attempt on Reagan, we passed the Brady Bill (2 republican politicians was shot, so republican politicians reacted). It went after "assault weapons" (not used in the attack on Reagan) by restricting them by cosmetic features (not lethality). The Brady Bill was a wildly ineffective and much hated piece of political fluffery. It served no greater purpose than advertising for "assault weapons" at the point it expired. The fact that a piece of firearms control legislation had an expiration date, was ample proof it was bullshit. Although it was touted by the MSM as a significant work, neither side was fooled by it.
RKBA has been screaming since 68 "da govenment is cummin fer da guns" instead of speaking in a calm reasonable voice. Instead of encouraging gun owners to stay calm and not taunt the other side. RKBA has let the least capable of us, explain us. Now, most non-owners think that, the calm seeming owners only recently acquired the skill to not drool on ourselves.
Please do not fall under the rabid RKBA spell of illusion. Accepting that someone with a different opinion than yours might have a valid point is not capitulation. Offering to roll back a bit on your demands to get closer to their perceived needs is not capitulation. Asking for them to roll back a bit instead of unconditionally surrendering is not capitulation. Both sides working to find an acceptable middle position, one acceptable to both sides, is negotiations, not the start of a tobaggon run into broken glass and barbed wire.
The more that we send the message we see their argument as a nest of broken glass and barbed wire. The more they will perceive that one of us will shoot all of them someday. We all need to not lose sight of them middle.
Compromise is how democracies work (or at least should).
derby378
(30,252 posts)...please let us know. I have never known any of them to seek negotiation with gun owners - only surrender.
I've tried to be a calm voice on the RKBA side. Granted, I'm only human, but I think I've shown a lot more restraint and forethought than the open-carry junkies or much of the NRA's board of directors.
If the gun control movement really wants middle ground with us, perhaps they should open themselves up to new ideas that pass Constitutional muster. Cleita and I discussed the idea of civilian armories after Sandy Hook happened, and I'd still like to see someone take up the concept.
Half-Century Man
(5,279 posts)All I see on the web, in newspapers, on television, or hear on the radio is nut jobs from both sides screaming. Even here on DU the discussion get heated. I just urge restraint on both sides in my own way, as clumsy as it is.
If you know of a place, other that this one, where someone might make a proposal, let me know please. I'll give it a whack.
Fortinbras Armstrong
(4,473 posts)The German gun control laws alluded to were enacted by the Weimar Republic, not the Nazis. They were concerned with armed groups of thugs such as the SA on the right and the Spartacists on the left.
Half-Century Man
(5,279 posts)Thank you for pointing out, I left room for misunderstanding.
The Green Manalishi
(1,054 posts)might have a valid point is not capitulation".
The wisest thing I have read in the last few tens of thousands of posts here or anywhere. I'm a stealin' that.
Half-Century Man
(5,279 posts)Usually the only time someone quotes me is if they burp second.
Jerry442
(1,265 posts)Menacing behavior violates any number of laws. Suppose I walk up and down the sidewalk in front of your home carrying a can of gasoline and holding up a lighter. Suppose I walk through a mall carrying an axe and occasionally swinging it around. Suppose I follow you down the road in my car wherever you go, and when you pull over to see if I'll pass, I pull over behind you and wait for you to go again.
The only reason that the police don't invoke the law on the OC demonstrators is that powerful people in parts of this country have lost their effin' minds.
aikoaiko
(34,127 posts)Typically. You can like it or not, but that is the law in most placed with open carry is legal.
Jerry442
(1,265 posts)Doesn't mean I can use them to strike fear into people's hearts if I feel like it. And if you think some random man carrying a gun where there's no good reason to carry a gun isn't scary, then we're from different planets.
aikoaiko
(34,127 posts)Standing in front of someone's house with gas can holding up a lighter could be construed as a direct threat to the inhabitants of the house. Likewise standing in front of someone house holding up a firearm would be threatening. Walking by with one slung or holstered not so much.
Swinging an ax in a mall would be threatening as would swinging a rifle around, but not a slung rifle.
We can disagree, but that how I see it and how the law sees it.
Fortinbras Armstrong
(4,473 posts)Also, just because something is legal, it isn't necessarily a good idea to do it.
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)Yes, it is better that Ybarra used only a shotgun, not an assault weapon. But he shouldn't have been able to carry either.
Crunchy Frog
(26,548 posts)They may finally succeed, where everyone else has failed, in making the case to the American public for sane gun control legislation.
aikoaiko
(34,127 posts)for the ant-RKBA groups.
Crunchy Frog
(26,548 posts)I think there could end up being some unforseen repercussions.
aikoaiko
(34,127 posts)Now I realize its a weird strategy that appears to be working.
RKBA activists keep pushing the window and keep the fight on the margins of gun laws instead of anything foundational.
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)Last edited Sat Jun 7, 2014, 05:05 PM - Edit history (1)
Where it is legal, how are people supposed to know whether the man legally "carrying" is a "peaceful" person who wants to demonstrate his rights by carrying a gun around in public, or the next Aaron Ybarra?
Response to pnwmom (Reply #58)
Logical This message was self-deleted by its author.
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)Oops.
Logical
(22,457 posts)aikoaiko
(34,127 posts)As I said, I don't like these demonstrations and say so on gun boards (as many people do).
But its difficult to stop because its legal.
Did Aaron Ybarra have his shotgun slung in a non-threatening manner until he was shooting? I don't know the details yet?
Anyway, states can and should pass anti-open carry restrictions if they think demonstrators are a problem. That's difficult to do as well in many states.
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)There is no way to carry a shotgun into a public place in a non-threatening manner, in my opinion.
Logical
(22,457 posts)aikoaiko
(34,127 posts)Tikki
(14,537 posts)shoot dead some one. Just saying, the gun seems to be the variable of honor.
Tikki
etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)My "fantasy" involves no gun deaths ... end of fantasy
Aristus
(66,075 posts)But every time one of those fools blows his dick or his head off while cleaning his gun because he doesn't have the simple common sense to clear the chamber first, I realize I have better things to lend my sympathy to.
aikoaiko
(34,127 posts)ileus
(15,396 posts)Folks who carry are able to realize the difference between an active shooter and a open carrier. Only paranoids afraid of firearms can't understand/see the difference.
MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)pulling the trigger. That's all.
Ed Suspicious
(8,879 posts)Heywood J
(2,515 posts)Electric Monk
(13,869 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)to cost a life. Who knows? That life could be your child's or mine.
It's just not worth the thrill. Don't open-carry. You are asking for trouble.
It isn't paranoid to avoid guns. It's common sense.
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)Sometimes a plainclothes or off-duty cop gets shot because he's thought to be the bad guy. But some guy that took two classes knows better.
Absurd assertion. Laughable.
I read about those "trained" carriers doing unsafe and deadly things with a firearm every damned day. Guess that "training" must suck.
Logical
(22,457 posts)Before Kansas went full open carry I would of called the police or tried to stop a man in the JCC parking lot carrying a rifle around. Now I have no recourse. I am fine with CC and have my license in Kansas. But no need for open carry long guns in the city.
Usually you sound a little reasonable, not in this case.
Ed Suspicious
(8,879 posts)90-percent
(6,828 posts)In our faces just how utterly broken our Democracy is. AS I UNDERSTAND IT, after Sandy Hook there was another outburst of hope for sane gun laws, as least when it comes to buying them 85% of ALL AMERICANS want some form of background check before someone can buy a gun.
We elected many Presidents and others by a 50.1% margin and we got 85% support and can't get our representatives to act on something so overwhelmingly favored by such a large majority of ALL OF US? I mean, just, simply, WHAT THE FUCK!
We loose about 30,000 lives to guns per year and 60% of those are suicides. The next argument is how many of those 18,000 should would have killed themselves successfully WITHOUT a gun available?
Unnecessary death by firearms is so normalized in America. "Guns don't kill people. Americans kill people." - Michael Moore
-90% Jimmy
hack89
(39,171 posts)Yes there was near universal support for universal background checks. But instead of introducing a bill to pass just that, Democratic leaders in Congress introduced every gun control law they have failed to pass in the past - including an AWB. They felt that they had enough public support to steamroll the NRA and if that failed, at least they could force the Republicans to vote against gun control.
That plane got blown to hell when Harry Reid decided that protecting the Democratic majority in the Senate was more important - the Democratic controlled Senate is where the post Sandy Hook gun control bills died.
There's always back story and peeling back layers of onion skin to get to the root cause.
Frankly, you're worthwhile information which I appreciate, is hard for me to come by. Because, for my personality, I'm already devoting a good portion of my life to being well informed. I simply do not have the drive to scrutinize what our reps are up to to this level of minutia.
So the Dems got greedy and tried to right every wrong of our gun problems in one fell swoop? Instead of evolutionary one small step at a time?
I would have gladly preferred one small baby step in the right direction that got passed, to nothing, as the Dems plan as you describe sounds stupid, greedy and obnoxious, frankly.
-90% Jimmy
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Once open carrier meets standing his ground, the problem will be solved.
It's the innocent bystanders who will suffer unjustly.
Collateral damage in the eyes of the NRA, I suppose.
ananda
(28,781 posts)But once elected, that rep works for his rich and corporate financiers,
not the people who elected him/her.
merrily
(45,251 posts)I can't do anything about the NRA. I am not one of its sponsors, nor do I pay it dues. However, I have a bit to say about who goes to Congress and who goes to my state house. Sure, it's not a hell of a lot of say, but it's something.
So, let's tell the truth about this. Vile as the NRA is, it doesn't make laws and the NRA is the one that fails to enforce laws. Politicians who let the NRA buy them off do that.
So, where does it make more sense to focus, on an entity that counts on politicians selling out, an entity about which most of us can do zero, or on the politicians who sell out, about whom all of us can do something?
mountain grammy
(26,568 posts)where Michael Che and Jordan Klepper gave tips on etiquette for open carry. It was four of the most truthful minutes of teevee I've seen in years. Wonder what would happen in Texas if three black men walked into Chipolte openly carrying guns?
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/14muzr/2nd-amendment-manners-do-s-and-don-ts
tclambert
(11,080 posts)'Cause really, imagine if a black man walked into a restaurant openly carrying a gun. How many times would the police shoot him?
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)mountain grammy
(26,568 posts)For Jon Stewart, common sense, and the truth. The right-wing gun lobby has absolutely no interest in "freedom," but only in blood profits for its death merchants.
Capt. Obvious
(9,002 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)The rubber just hit the road.
Open-carry just hit stand your ground.
Can't have both laws in a state.
The combination is deadly.
Why have either?
Beyond me.
geretogo
(1,281 posts)your ground idiots and we will be rid of them all after a few years .
alfredo
(60,065 posts)Diclotican
(5,095 posts)doxydad
I have tried to understand the idea you all see to have problem with over there - weapons all over the place - massacres where people is murdering at random - or someone who accidental shoot another with a gun - or them self trying to clean a gun - but in all this I have tried my best to grasp it all - and have possible fired on a fee neones of brain stuff in the proses - but I at a loss - I just do not understand the american 2 amendment - Even that I have been reading about it for a long time - and understood the principality around it all - mostly because the newborn US had no regular army - and it was up to each State to make sure each state was able to fend off enemies - that be indians who wanted their land back - or people royal to the UK king - or the british colonies in what is today Canada - but I have yet to grasp why ordinary people with no absolutely need for weapon at all have this idea that they have as much weapon as possible in their house - and not just ordinary weapon - who can be used in hunting (many people have hunting as a hobby, and therefore a weapon or two in the house - and is always after the best next thing) but high powered weapons who have no use what so ever in a hunting situation - but is used by military all over the world - to kill people who are their enemies...
And then we have this "gentlemen" who is walking around in shopping malls - target is one of the few ones who have been targeted for some reason by the gun "Lovers" and who surly are doing it because they scare people who have not weapons - and who is thinking about a shopping mall, or a store as a safe place to be..... To me it sounds like something out of a bad novel by Stephen King...
What it is all about? Why all this bravado about weapons, and the need for having all this weapons - because they believe that everyone is an target for their weapons - not to say the story told by some media outlets about the government wanting to take away their weapons - because they want to impose a regime who is way from US - at least in the idea who is being told to them - and what they are telling them self all the time...
In some way - I think I am lucky who live in a country - who do not have 2 amendment - who do not have a powerfully weapon lobby group like NRA - and who also have some of the worlds strictest laws when it come to weapon use... It is not perfect - a few years ago we had a lone wolf who tried to blow up our government offices, and killed 80 persons - of them 77 on a youth camp outside of our capital... He is now serving a sentence of 21 year in prison - plus possible been kept in prison for as long as it is seen necessary for keeping him there... But it is very seldom for this to happened in our country - I think it was the first of the kind since WW2 in our country - almost 70 year... And that in a country who in fact have a lot of weapon in private hands - everything from pepole who are member of gun clubs - and is shooting at targets on a field - to pepole who hunt regulary - not to say peppole of our military forces who for many reasons is eligble to having weapons in their home - a nessesarity if war was ever to break out - even if the posiblity of that happening is yet to be determined.. untill 22 july 2011 I doubt anyone in the public had any idea about blowing up the government offices - not to say killing more than 80 pepole becouse of who they was.... And I suspect it would be a long time before anything like him wil ever be representive for anything here too....
Diclotican
The Blue Flower
(5,419 posts)No one has ever done it better.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)DirkGently
(12,151 posts)... before groups of people concerned about the intentions of open-carriers take up their own weapons and shadow them as they go about their Taco-purchasing and mother-mocking activities?
If all of this is Constitutionally protected, we should arrive shortly at competing groups of heavily armed "good guys" stalking each other around shopping malls and fast food joints.
Which would suit the NRA / gun manufacturing lobby perfectly. Eventually everyone will be hauling their military-style weapons and body armor with them everywhere, on constant alert for whichever of their fellow Armed Citizens might have ill intent.
Sales will be spectacular.
Should go well.
Electric Monk
(13,869 posts)DirkGently
(12,151 posts)first saw that strip. Just seems like the logical extension, eh?
Initech
(99,909 posts)But Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Bill Maher have completely destroyed America's gun culture in two hours.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)Chili's must love the extra advertising. Sent the direct link from Comedy Central to my mom.