[FRIAM] Don't take your guns (or ammo) to town...

[Steve Smith]

And I just can't stop ranting can I?

   
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8736703/Trump-appointed-HHS-official-told-followers-buy-ammunition-election-apologizes.html

Another whack-job Trump-sycophant-appointee going off like a mini loose
cannon on deck...   how in the world does one conflate "the public
health interest" with telling people to "stock up on ammunition" because
it will be hard to get.

He was even subtle enough to say that "*when* Trump fails to stand down
at the inauguration, the shooting will begin" with all the ambiguity and
implied innuendo that Trump is famous for.   Fails to stand down if he
LOSES?  And WHO will be doing the shooting?   It is a setup to say he
*might* refuse to stand down if he loses, and/or that his opponents will
start a civil war if he WINS, and that either way, the "strong people"
(Trump's phrase) "who have most of the guns" will take up arms and "put
down" any opposition in vigilante/mob/militia/self-appointed-posse style?

I can't register this kind of top-down "inciting to violence" as
anything but yet another example of how much more threatening the RIGHT
at least wants to appear and very likely IS than the Left.   Reinoehl is
very much the exception to the bias of Right vs Left vigilanteism.   One
might invoke the shooting in Compton as a Lefty shooting, or even BLM,
but it reads a lot more like a neighborhood breakdown in the poor
(mostly black, yes) population and local Law enforcement...  I don't
think any BLM or Lefties-at-Large or even AntiFa-identified individuals
would endorse or enjoy such a blatant blindside attack (apparently) for
no particular reason (14 month on-the-job rookies not as likely to have
provoked specific/personal animosity as veterans).  The local crowds
heard jeering/cheering against law enforcement seem to represent the
local antagonism that has grown between them and law enforcement.

And then we have Trump describing/applauding Reinoehl's "apprehension by
one-sided gunfire" as "Retribution".  As Glen points out, his (apparent)
shooting of a civilian "on the other side" absolutely required that he
be apprehended, investigated, charged, tried, probably even sentenced...
but the fact is nobody seems to know what *really happened* in either
his shooting of someone, nor in the Marshalls', et al. shooting of
him.   Eye/Earwitness accounts of his "apprehension" seem to be "all
over the place", but it seems to be agreed that Reinoehl did not fire a
weapon, even if he WAS holding one (that is up for question) at the time
of the "apprehension by gunfire".  No body or dash cams of course, and
that is apparently "standard practice" for Federal LEO.... hmmm? 
Especially in THESE times?

I'm hoping/trusting that the Secret Service detail on Trump has not been
subverted and if (when) he is defeated, it is THEY who will perp-walk
him to Marine1 and fly him to his closes private resort to lick his
wounds and get wound up on his next career as a Rush Limbaugh/Alex Jones
wannabe (or whatever).

</rant>

 - Steve


>> GEPR> I like your idea re: an underlying impetus to continue pouring money into whatever hobby, including guns. Rather than "permission", though, I'd think it's more like some sort of *reminder* ... "Oh yeah, guns are cool. I should buy more." It's difficult to describe to a non-gun owner how cool it actually is. Even the time my slide ripped my ... web (?) between my index and thumb, similar to when you hook your earlobe with a fish hook, there's something viscerally satisfying about dangerous equipment ... welders, band saws, etc. Planers are the only ones that truly scare me, for some reason. Even the table saw is less intimidating. I guess I'd rather get my finger or hand chopped clean off than get a 1 mm layer scraped off. Maybe the lathe freaks me out a bit, I guess.
> SASSAFRASS> I do think "danger" plays into the adrenal system which has it's own
> rewards.
>
> I know guns are amazing toys <erh... I mean.... uhhh...> tools, and have
> my own fascinations.  Great action-at-a-distance...   Great
> "equalizers"...  Great "levers"...  but I choose not to own guns because
> as I tell my gun-nut friends (with only a thin layer of dissemblage) "I
> probably would have used one by now".   When you have a hammer (I mean
> loaded gun), everything looks like a nail (I mean target that needs a
> hole drilled through it or person that needs Killt!). 
>
> I am taking back up archery after nearly 50 years, mostly because Mary
> took an interest when she discovered my antique bow, and because it is a
> "mechanism" I can construct myself from raw materials.   A "stick
> thrower made from a stick" is pretty compelling and the technology of
> selecting and shaping a bow-stave is pretty simple yet requires or
> allows for a lot of subtlety...  even moreso for
> arrows/fletching/points.   I don't intend to shoot anything live with
> it...   the thick wad of Amazon-Box cardboard is enough for me. 
>
> I like your J. Cash quote? of "don't take your guns to town" for just
> that reason.   Those of you who own and wield guns without risk of
> accidentally killing someone with them command my respect.   I'm
> unlikely to kill anything with my bow by accident or even in the heat of
> the moment.   Definitely not a good candidate for suicide!
>
> I agree that "reminder" is as powerful/likely as "permission", but last
> gun show I was at (helping my mother unload the (nearly unused)
> nickel-plated snub .38 my father bought for her 30 years ago) was right
> after Obama I, and the whole place was abuzz with how hard it was to buy
> this or that ammo (I think a lot were chattering about 9mm) and
> alternatively/contradictorally conspiracizing that Obama had already
> managed to restrict manufacturers, and that they were *all* hoarding
> themselves, and that the manufacturers were producing flat-out to keep
> up with their (hoarding) demand.   One typical monologue might have been
> "I laaaike to keep at least 1000 rounds on hand 'just in case'  but I'm
> thinkin' maybe 2 or 3 thousand is a better idea... iff'n I can find em!"
> or "I tole Mabel that even though she thinks I've already got too much,
> you just can't have enough when they'z a gonna come takem away from
> ya!"     This is obviously caricature, but in a small-town (TorC, NM)
> fairgrounds setting, it isn't that far off the mark.  
>
> And this year it was "Guns, Germs, and Toilet Paper" - COVID 19 era
> hoarding.
>
> BTW, I was recently reading up on close-quarters disarming of handgun
> wielders and the method-of-choice for a revolver apparently is to force
> the web of your thumb-finger between the hammer and the shell-casing...
> kindof an intentional version of your semi-auto ouch.   The semi-auto
> interference of choice is a bit easier... to just grasp the whole thing
> firmly so the slide can't operate.   I doubt I'll ever get to practice
> either of these, and if I did, I'd flub it badly and get drilled and
> powder-burned... at least it will likely be "through and through" and
> leave some heat/chemical cauterization of the wound while I wait to
> bleed to death.
>
> Why can't we all just be nice to one another?  <damn bleedin' hart libral!>
>
> grumble,
>
>  - Steve
>
>> On 9/15/20 10:05 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
>>> Is anyone else watching this open publication:  Cell Press/Patterns?
>>>
>>> https://www.cell.com/patterns/home
>>>
>>> I found the following paper on correlating firearm purchase/demand with
>>> mass shootings.
>>>
>>> https://www.cell.com/patterns/fulltext/S2666-3899(20)30110-0
>>>
>>> Their two models seem to ignore/exclude *my* model which is that for
>>> many gun owners, there is a constant pressure toward acquiring more (or
>>> at least new) weapons and the mass shootings trigger some level of
>>> "permission" to expand or upgrade a personal arsenal.   The counter
>>> pressure could be familial/spousal  or superego which needs to be
>>> negotiated with to allow more resource to go into satisfying that
>>> background pressure to acquire.   The same thing applies to my relatives
>>> who are knitters and quilters who use most any excuse for buying more
>>> fabric/yarn.
>
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