He might have been actually hungry! And I don't deny he could be one of those people who live on photosynthesis. They have special skills but not in the reasoning dept.
Not sure which war you mean (I was not in combat), our rifles (NOT GUN!) were Vietnam-vintage M-16s. I also had an M-203 grenade launcher, but that is not set up for fine marksmanship.
OUR BROKEN LAW COURTS CANNOT BE REPAIRED FROM WITHIN.
The solutions to the problems of our Judicial Branch need to be applied upstream, above all in our legislative branch, which unfortunately is both the most necessary and the most broken branch of our democracy. We have allowed the NRA to write our laws for too long. As a result, we all have a greatly strengthened right to shoot at people with impunity, but a greatly weakened right not to be shot at. The law courts step in only after the smoke clears, declaring white people innocent and black people guilty, but even if this were not outrageously unjust, it would still do nothing about our quotidian carnage: firearm fatality rates that tower over those of every other industrially developed nation on the planet. Too many of us accept our outrageously high gun death toll as normal, but it is anything but normal.
Unless a newly alert Legislative and Executive Branch reverse this imbalance by regulating guns and appointing Supreme Court Justices who will allow us to regulate guns, we shall soon all be allowed to shoot at our neighbors legally, merely by offering the excuse that we all feel threatened by them. If enough people decide that it's better to shoot first than be shot, and if enough people act on this inhuman logic all at once, then we will find ourselves in another Civil War, and our law courts, racist or not, will have no power to forbid it.
The incendiary dupes of the NRA are of course mostly white, because it is only white people who can imagine shooting someone dead and getting away with it more easily than they can imagine being shot dead by someone who gets away with it. Most nonwhite people have different expectations.
The outrageously unfair advantage that white people have before our law courts obscures the fact that in an actual shooting war, which some white people are fearfully and stupidly marching toward, white people would have no advantage at all. In a general systemic failure of social order, even the most ignorant white people would discover, very quickly, that nonwhite people can use guns just as well as white people can, and that no law court, no matter how biased in favor of white supremacy, can help you after you have been shot dead.
In 1860, white supremacists marched gaily off to war against the proposition that all people were created equal, believing that they, being racially superior, would prevail. They were wrong. If we enter a second Civil War, God forbid, they will have to learn that they are wrong all over again. But at what cost?
The violent racist fantasy of a resurgent white imperial Confederacy can gain popular appeal, even among ignorant white people, only in a weak democracy in which saboteurs and obstructionists, representing a small minority of extremely rich people, hold prohibitive institutional power over the political representatives of the true majority of voters in America, who are multi-racial and social democratic in outlook. Somehow, this corrupt system of elite rule must be made to fail forward, to become a real democracy in which the real majority really has the power to govern – and if I had any idea how to make this happen, I would tell you.
In the meantime, I think we may still delay a Civil War as long as hand-held video recording devices still outnumber handguns. But we will safely reduce the threat of a Civil War only by strengthening institutions that create real goods and services, that care for people and the environment, and that tell the truth; and by weakening institutions that expropriate wealth, exploit people, degrade the environment, and tell lies.
As a combat veteran, I was completely satisfied with all the weapons I operated making enough noise that the enemy stopped shooting at me so I could flee in safety.
Ever notice that mass casualty shootings like Buffalo, El Paso, Las Vegas, etc. usually seem to involve something other than any shotgun? Hmm, what could it be?
They are called ear horns or ear trumpets!
He might have been actually hungry! And I don't deny he could be one of those people who live on photosynthesis. They have special skills but not in the reasoning dept.
Didn't know that.
Ok, so he managed to be on the right side of one thing.
Is that like people (women) (my sister) who say "you can't break up a marriage that isn't already in trouble." ?
Each piece of 00 buckshot is an independently lethal ,33 caliber projectile.
It became obvious that once the automatic mousegun was standard issue, the average GI couldn't hit the wall of a barn, even from inside the barn.
They aren't the brightest shooters.
The ones we were issued in the war didn't have a short burst option. It was either full auto or semi-automatic fire.
Not sure which war you mean (I was not in combat), our rifles (NOT GUN!) were Vietnam-vintage M-16s. I also had an M-203 grenade launcher, but that is not set up for fine marksmanship.
Viet Nam war. M16A1. You probably got an A3. My launcher was the M-79. I got pretty good with that.
I wrote the following rant not long ago.
OUR BROKEN LAW COURTS CANNOT BE REPAIRED FROM WITHIN.
The solutions to the problems of our Judicial Branch need to be applied upstream, above all in our legislative branch, which unfortunately is both the most necessary and the most broken branch of our democracy. We have allowed the NRA to write our laws for too long. As a result, we all have a greatly strengthened right to shoot at people with impunity, but a greatly weakened right not to be shot at. The law courts step in only after the smoke clears, declaring white people innocent and black people guilty, but even if this were not outrageously unjust, it would still do nothing about our quotidian carnage: firearm fatality rates that tower over those of every other industrially developed nation on the planet. Too many of us accept our outrageously high gun death toll as normal, but it is anything but normal.
Unless a newly alert Legislative and Executive Branch reverse this imbalance by regulating guns and appointing Supreme Court Justices who will allow us to regulate guns, we shall soon all be allowed to shoot at our neighbors legally, merely by offering the excuse that we all feel threatened by them. If enough people decide that it's better to shoot first than be shot, and if enough people act on this inhuman logic all at once, then we will find ourselves in another Civil War, and our law courts, racist or not, will have no power to forbid it.
The incendiary dupes of the NRA are of course mostly white, because it is only white people who can imagine shooting someone dead and getting away with it more easily than they can imagine being shot dead by someone who gets away with it. Most nonwhite people have different expectations.
The outrageously unfair advantage that white people have before our law courts obscures the fact that in an actual shooting war, which some white people are fearfully and stupidly marching toward, white people would have no advantage at all. In a general systemic failure of social order, even the most ignorant white people would discover, very quickly, that nonwhite people can use guns just as well as white people can, and that no law court, no matter how biased in favor of white supremacy, can help you after you have been shot dead.
In 1860, white supremacists marched gaily off to war against the proposition that all people were created equal, believing that they, being racially superior, would prevail. They were wrong. If we enter a second Civil War, God forbid, they will have to learn that they are wrong all over again. But at what cost?
The violent racist fantasy of a resurgent white imperial Confederacy can gain popular appeal, even among ignorant white people, only in a weak democracy in which saboteurs and obstructionists, representing a small minority of extremely rich people, hold prohibitive institutional power over the political representatives of the true majority of voters in America, who are multi-racial and social democratic in outlook. Somehow, this corrupt system of elite rule must be made to fail forward, to become a real democracy in which the real majority really has the power to govern – and if I had any idea how to make this happen, I would tell you.
In the meantime, I think we may still delay a Civil War as long as hand-held video recording devices still outnumber handguns. But we will safely reduce the threat of a Civil War only by strengthening institutions that create real goods and services, that care for people and the environment, and that tell the truth; and by weakening institutions that expropriate wealth, exploit people, degrade the environment, and tell lies.
2021, November 19, Friday
Not real assault rifles.
As a combat veteran, I was completely satisfied with all the weapons I operated making enough noise that the enemy stopped shooting at me so I could flee in safety.
Ever notice that mass casualty shootings like Buffalo, El Paso, Las Vegas, etc. usually seem to involve something other than any shotgun? Hmm, what could it be?
except corn subsidies.