Altered States

Good news: Uvalde looks like the national tipping point in gun control.

Federal reform, of course, is impossible, because the NRA owns the GOP.

But it doesn't own every governor, making blue-state reforms quite feasible.

My own governor and the Democratic leadership in Delaware's legislature right now are pushing a "historic" package of six gun-control reforms.

The reforms would:

• Raise the age to purchase guns to 21; 
• Strengthen background checks; 
• Ban the sale of assault weapons; 
• Ban the accessories used to turn handguns into AR-15s; 
• Ban high-capacity magazines; and
• Hold gun manufacturers and dealers liable for recklessness.

"We have an obligation to do everything we can to prevent tragedies,” Delaware's governor said Thursday in a news release. "I look forward to seeing these bills on my desk this session.”

Other blue states' governors are pushing similar reforms.

If the governors succeed, as I believe they will, we'll soon find ourselves an even more "divided nation." 

There will be gun-safe states and gun-loving states. 

NRA-free states and NRA-owned states. 

Blue states and red states. 

That's red as in blood.

And that's okay, in my book, because parents can simply pick up and move from a red to a blue state.

If they value their kids' lives, they can relocate.

Sure, the housing is tight in the blue states; but the schools and libraries are better, and the jobs plentiful.

Let the red states relish their militarized weapons—and the weekly mass shootings that stem from them.

We blue-state citizens will send them thoughts and prayers.

Gundamentalist Mike

Not only do we have Second Amendment rights because
God gives them to us, but also the Gospel.

— Marty Daniel

Among the scores of abhorrent characters created by novelist William Faulkner, the small-town vigilante Percy Grimm was one of the most abhorrent.

Whenever justice needed a hand, Percy Grimm donned his National Guard uniform, holstered his automatic, and assembled a posse—mostly poker players from the American Legion hall.

In Light in August, while leading such a posse, Percy chases down the escaped mulatto convict Joe Christmas, shoots him, and castrates him, shouting, "Now you’ll let white women alone, even in hell.”

Faulkner created Percy Grimm in 1932.

Years later, the novelist would describe him as a "Fascist galahad," a two-bit storm trooper who's only tolerated by townspeople because they find his patriotism "quicker and truer than theirs."

"He's not prevalent," Faulkner said, "but he's everywhere."

Percy Grimm is indeed everywhere, even today; presently in the form of the gundamentalist.

Like the members of any cult, the gundamentalist simply cannot abide a mainstream viewpoint.

In the case of the gundamentalist, the mere hint of "gun control" unleashes a Grimm-like fear of miscegenation.

I'll give you an example.

This Wednesday, local police arrested a crazed gunman in a town near me, just 24 hours after the mass shooting in Texas.

Their report, posted on Facebook, identified one of the gunman's weapons as an AR-15.

The police report generated a heated discussion about the right to own AR-15s for hunting.

When stating her opposition to the weapon for that (or any) purpose, Diane mistakenly called the AR-15 an "assault rifle," instead of an "automatic rifle."

That provoked Gundamentalist Mike to scold Diane for her Liberal's ignorance:

"Good lord!," Mike wrote. "AR stands for 'Armalite,' not 'Assault Rifle.' 'Assault Rifle' is a fake, Democrat talking point used since the 90’s. Picture a stock Mustang or Camaro. Then picture that same car with 'accessories' designed to make it look more sporty, or badass, if you will... plus with engine/drivetrain work designed to make it perform better than factory. That’s all an AR-15 is. It’s a hunting rifle, with accessories."

Diane, ladylike, apologized for her error, prompting Liberal Tom to jump in and say to Mike, "What a bunch of nonsense! You are trying to tell me that an AR-15 is just a .22 bolt action with accessories. The AR-15 is not a hunting weapon."

After much insult-trading between Mike and Tom, I commented to Mike, "Well, you sure do love your guns. Guess they substitute for virility."

Mike replied, "Hardly. And a very typical, and pedestrian statement. But as a gun enthusiast, yeah they’re pretty cool. It’s OK to be scared, just don’t belittle everyone else who isn’t."

He punctuated his comment with a half dozen predictably puerile emoticons.

"Who's scared?" I asked.

"Apparently you," Mike replied, "if you think having a gun has anything to do with manhood. That’s just a stupid fucking statement. It’s OK to be scared of them, I just don’t happen to be."

I then offered gun-loving Mike—who looks like a biker—some food for thought. 

"Men experiencing SD are no more likely to own guns than men without SD," I wrote. "However, the members of the Second Amendment Cult work overtime to compensate for inadequate genitalia by decking themselves out as angels of death. The cult itself connects gun ownership with SD."

Mike responded, "That wins the Internet for the stupidest comment of the day so far."

With Percy Grimm in mind, I replied, "The failure of a mythical America to materialize has resulted in a flight by White men into predictable defense mechanisms: regression into childlike tantrums and abject dependence on unquestioned authority; the projection onto the historical victims of violence—including castration—the desire to perform symbolic castration by taking away 'our guns;' the projection onto the victims of sexual predation, whose supposedly dangerous sexuality must by controlled by laws and police power, the desire to take 'our' women; the seemingly natural identification with the real oppressor, whose interests his victims force themselves to believe are their own, and whose bidding they will willingly do, if it gives them an opportunity to assert illusory power. This can be understood to be, at least in part, a psychosexual disorder, common to modern men struggling to survive contemporary capitalism in multicultural societies."

That quieted Mike.

And with that I feel it's now time for coffee.

Thoughts and Prayers

I am a proud supporter of the Second Amendment and will do everything I can to oppose gun grabs by the Far Left.

— Rep. Tony Gonzales

Tony Gonzales represents Uvalde, Texas, where the morgue is stuffed this morning with young children.

Most are so badly shot up, the coroners can't identify them.

Gonzales used Twitter a few hours ago to provide constituents an 800 number to call, if they feel distressed and "need to talk." 

A call to the number will be answered by a federal employee who works at one of the 180 "Lifeline" call centers operated by the US government. 

Each call costs taxpayers $82.

If every adult in Gonzales' district were to call the 800 number just one time, taxpayers would owe nearly $63 million.

That's how Republicans spend our money?

Anyway, from his biography, Gonzales looks like an admirable guy.

He used the US Navy to climb out of poverty and today champions hard work and education. He's married to a woman named Angel and has six children.

My thought for the day is that, although his fellow party members would deny it, Rep. Gonzales and the GOP stand squarely behind the Uvalde shooter. You could say the GOP's finger was on the trigger.

My prayer for the day is that Gonzales finds the words to explain to his six children why so many other kids have to die every month to prevent "gun grabs by the Far Left."

Good luck with that, Congressman.

Thoughts and Prayers

Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages.

— Ernest Hemingway

Boulder, Atlanta, Springfield, Midland, Dayton, El Paso, Gilroy, Virginia Beach, Thousand Oaks, Pittsburgh, Annapolis.

Alongside these place names, the abstract words thoughts and prayers are indeed obscene (obscene, adjective, from the Latin ob ("in front of") + caenum ("filth")).

We're embarrassed to hear them any longer. As we should be.

Hemingway wrote in A Farewell to Arms:

"I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious and sacrifice. We had heard them and had read them now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it. 

"There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity. Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages."

Let's retire thoughts and prayers. Permanently. 

We have heard them now for a long time and can no longer stand to hear them. 

They're words that have become obscene.

Why Your Trigger Happiness isn't Worth Our Harm

I'm troubled when a few Americans put their personal happiness on a pedestal above all others'.

That's what many gun owners are doing.

They stand their ground on the Second Amendment. But private gun ownership is a moral question, not a Constitutional one.

A majority of Americans can change the Constitution (go see the movie Lincoln, if you have any doubt). 

No one can change what's moral.

It's moral to respect another person's life. No Constitutional right invalidates that fact.

Constitutional rights may be curtailed to protect others from harms that can arise from the exercise of those rights.

I have, for example, a Constitutional right to worship freely. But it doesn't permit me to sacrifice humans (although human sacrifice might be central to my religion).

Right now, the burden is on gun owners to prove why unfettered gun ownership isn't causing terrible harm to others.

They can't.

That's because guns cause harm—by design—and are in too many private hands.

Americans have a moral reason to curtail private gun ownership, just as we curtail the ownership of dynamite, hand grenades and nuclear bombs.

Sorry gun owners: your trigger happiness isn't worth our harm.

The Under Toad

I met Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson at a conference once.

It was 1972. The country was deep in the throes of a Presidential election.

Four months earlier, segregationist and gun-loving Alabama Governor George Wallace had lost his bid for the Presidency thanks to a would-be assassin.

I asked Dr. Thompson whether he thought Wallace might change his stance on gun control after being shot five times in the chest and stomach.

"I don't know," Thompson snarled. "But I do know this. Everyone should carry a gun. We all should carry guns. The streets would be a lot safer. America would be a better place."

Thirty-three years later, depressed and deathly ill, Hunter Thompson blew off the top of his head with a shotgun.

I don't understand the pleasure of gun ownership. I don't understand the thrill of hunting animals. But a lot of people I know and admire enjoy both those things.

As a parent, however, I understand how fear and loathing due to the loss of a child could exceed any imaginable sorrow.

In his novel The World According to Garp, John Irving famously described the brutal workings of the "Under Toad," code-words for "the forces that disrupt human life and sometimes destroy it." The life of a child, in particular.

The Under Toad visited Newtown, Connecticut, last week.

Several parents will never feel sorrow-less again.

Guns Don't Kill People. Associations Do.

The lonesome death of Trayvon Martin has prompted me to wonder why.


Why did George Zimmerman shoot a 17 year-old kid strolling down the road, minding his own business?


I've followed the chain of causation from that gated community in Florida back to its original link.


The chain leads to the doorsteps of a handful of pro-gun associations.


It's no secret: associations, when sufficiently funded and mobilized, are powerful packagers and pushers of legislation.


In this case, the legislation sold by those associations promotes and protects vigilantism.


I'm no "criminal coddler," but vigilantism isn't ground I can stand on, or for, or behind.


We all should tremble when the National Rifle Association, the Gun Owners of America and the National Association for Gun Rights want to talk bullet points.