The gun nut issue



Graphic from Daily Kos

James Fallows in the Atlantic has some excellent recent posts on the gun issue (and the right-wing slurs on Chuck Hagel).

 

More or less in jest, I once compared the gun fetish to the bike fetish, which was unfair, since the bike fetishists only screw up traffic, while the gun obsession actually kills people. What they have in common: the belief that their venerated objects have serious political significance.

 

The local angle: The only thing I agreed with Chris Daly about was his attempt to ban guns in San Francisco, which passed with more than 57% of the vote in 2005 (page 82 here). Alas, It was thrown out by the court when the NRA litigated.

 

The Gun Nut Community has always thought that Barack Obama was going to go after their guns, but in reality he's never had much interest in the issue, except now when there's a national consensus---let's hope it isn't temporary---to do something about the routine gun carnage in the US. The Supreme Court's contemptible Second Amendment Heller decision in 2008 will make doing anything harder.

This is from early 2009!

My prediction in 2009: "Of course our leaders aren't going to act on gun control. Evidently we'll just have to get used to the periodic bloodletting wherein innocents are slaughtered by nuts with guns." I hope that's no longer the case.