If Gun Ghouls Messed With Literature

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America’s ghastly Republican politicians and ghastly gun makers continue to support the proliferation of military-style weapons repeatedly used to massacre people, and continue to oppose common-sense measures such as universal background checks. But they won’t be completely satisfied until the world’s great novels are rewritten to reflect their sick preference for gun “rights” over human lives.

For instance, they might argue that Jane Austen really meant Pride and Prejudice‘s first line to be “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of an AR-15.” 

I guess early-19th-century publishers who avoided positive assault-rifle mentions in their books were “woke” liberal commies who backed banning Trump from Twitter.

The far-right death cult also believes the opening of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre would be much improved if it read “There was a strong possibility of an elementary-school shooting that day.”

If there were no shooting, it would be a disappointment for that cult far exceeding Jane and Rochester’s regret about not having met on The Dating Game TV show.

Moby-Dick? America’s “pro-life” weapon worshippers feel Herman Melville would have had much higher initial sales if his masterpiece started with “Call me Rambo” rather than “Call me Ishmael.” 

Heck, if that novel’s narrator had been packing enough heat to dispatch Pequod first mate Starbuck, perhaps a certain coffee chain wouldn’t be seeing all that “socialist-icky” unionization. (A 2022 development I’m thrilled about.)

Many U.S. bullet bros tend to be fans of Russia’s murderous leader Putin, but are miffed at Russia’s Leo Tolstoy for not starting Anna Karenina with a different first line. The NRA’s literary pros have that prose fixed: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy because it doesn’t have as many guns as Tolstoy had children.”

If inquiring minds want to know, Leo and Sophia had 13 kids — but only two were manufactured by Smith & Wesson.

America’s gun ghouls are doubly mad at Charles Dickens for not using his immortal first and last A Tale of Two Cities passages to mention hardware that inflicts maximum 21st-century carnage. The revisions: “It was the best of body armor; it was the bestest of body armor” and “It is a far, far bigger stash of ammo that I have than I ever had before.” 

Our Mutual Friend might be the undertaker. Or, rather, one of many undertakers. 

F. Scott Fitzgerald was a prose master, but the Republican killer cadre would want the last passage of The Great Gatsby to be even more sublime: “So we bleat on, a minority against a gun-safety majority, putting U.S. citizens ceaselessly into their graves.”

Actually, the ultra-conservative sickos who think gun “rights” are more important than human lives wouldn’t like the way I rewrote Fitzgerald’s famous closing line. They can all go to hell — though Satan might consider them too evil to welcome.

My literary-trivia book is described and can be purchased here: Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Authors and the Greatest Novels of All Time.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column for Baristanet.com every Thursday. The latest piece — which also discusses guns, as well as some landlords ignoring my town’s new rent-control law — is here.

111 thoughts on “If Gun Ghouls Messed With Literature”

  1. Oh yes, they have other fetishes as well,, many in fact, a lot of people with means collect all kinds of things, just because they can afford them, cars, tools, electric guitars, jewelry, watches, etc. Many watch shows like Antique Roadshows, and collect whatever, one of these customers had a collection from Frederick Remington’s cast in bronze cowboys, he also owns a big collection of .38 Narco pistols, (See online, hard to believe, but true, just click images) and Perazzi and Krieghoff engraved shotguns, one of the many guys who will hide his purchases from the wife! The guy is a well respected specialist Physician, and a very nice person, he just likes to collect all kinds of stuff, like an old Porsche, and other cars, his house looks like a museum.
    The place I worked was a high end antique shop, frequented by rich people, that in their time off will like to visit us, and show us their new acquisition from guns, or whatever they bought, some we will sell, or buy from, or to them, not the guns, but whatever else they may want to get rid off, and we knew we could resale for more value.

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    • Very true, theburningheart, that the rich collect many different things. I wish more of them would be more philanthropic with their money, but, then again, many people who become rich or inherit their wealth are ruthless, entitled, etc. So no surprise that they aren’t more charitable.

      Must have been fascinating working in a high-end antique store! And at times quite disturbing.

      Thank you for the follow-up comment!

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      • Mostly I had a great time there working for sixteen years, as it went, they closed six months before my retirement, the owner died at the ripe age of 104 years old, the inheritors sold the merchandise, and demolish the property, and I decided not to look for a new job, and wait six months to apply for retirement benefits. But I learnt, a great deal about how wealthy people, spend their money, and what they do with their leisure time, we had many regular customers, who loved to come there, and just chat with us, and other customers like them, the place was frequented also, by quite rich and famous people, actors, professionals, and businessman, mostly wealthy. If any charity they did, possibly was to save money, as deductibles instead than paying higher taxes!

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          • Yes I did, my job there as a salesman was easy, and relaxed, and met very interesting people, and made friends with some UCLA, and USC teachers, and other bright people, some went there, just to chat with me, the ugly side, was the long commute hours to work, specially on the way back, it could take me three, four, or more hours depending traffic, soon I stopped driving, and took the bus, at least that way I could catch up, on my reading on the buss.

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  2. What can I say? On the US people love guns, on the 32 years I lived in LA , I made a lot of friends, rarely one will not own a gun, in fact most they collected guns as a hobby, at my last place of work, on Saturday a lot of our clients will get at our place to chat, and show their new guns, and knives, to others, hell I even met Mauro Perazzi in person!
    Brought by our clients to spend that Saturday with some of his clients, who will travel to Italy to get a handcraft shotgun, made according to personalized measures, as how long your arms are, and those guns cost a fortune, but they can afford them, some of them I figure can arm a small militia, by themselves, with so many weapons they posses.
    Some of them weary of the wife giving them hell for purchasing another gun, they will send them to our business, and put them in the trunk of their cars, and introduce them when the wife will be away from home, into their safe weapon box, some even had an armored room, where no one could go there but themselves.
    What can I say? Our people love weapons, and go by the Charlton Heston’s popularized lemma:
    “I’ll give you my gun when you pry (or take) it from my cold, dead hands”
    Of course the only dead, are the innocent victims from psychopaths, who shoot them for no reason at all.

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    • Thank you for the strong and vivid comment, theburningheart! Yes, much of the United States is “gun crazy.” So disturbing, and so dangerous. If those Americans have to have a “fetish,” I wish they would choose other ones.

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  4. In the true spirit with this post:

    See, what a scourge is laid upon your bullshit,
    That heaven finds means to kill your joys with bullets.
    And all for winking at our discords too
    Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish’d.

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  5. I’m shivering.
    The mass murders are so upsetting.
    You have been very clever with your commentary, Dave.
    So, as nothing happens in the USA, Canada just made new laws prohibiting hand gun imports, and limiting the magazines of hunting rifles to 5 bullets.
    That does not stop the USA gun crazy culture from having an effect up here.
    After the Robb Elemetry shooting, we’ve had daily B-B gun attacks at schools, with juveniles arrested. Little girls shot in the face, etc.

    How about this:
    – We had our long weekend last weekend. It was the first time that there were fireworks since the Pandemic began.
    They were at a city beach in a family area. Lots of kids and parents come to watch, for 2 nights.
    Some hooligans decided to attend. They brought Roman Candles, and used them like guns, into the crowds.
    They shot at anyone. Police were hit in the face. One person was stabbed. Someone had a gun, and1 person was shot. A dozen a-holes were arrested. The police presence was upped the second night, and more a-holes came, shooting Roman Candles. No one died, many hospitalizations, including police.
    Another dozen arrests.
    WTF? SO, if we had lax gun laws here, would all the a-holes have shown up with guns, and slaughtered? –

    Anyway, Dave, I don’t have to change any words.

    Prince Escalus – “Romeo and Juliette”

    “And I for winking at your discords too
    Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish’d.”

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    • Thank you, Resa!

      Yes, Canada — like any other country — is not without its violent instances. But, as you note, what a difference from the U.S. in the approach to gun safety with those new laws added to the old ones. There’s something very sick about the U.S., and I’m sorry it has even a little influence on Canada when it comes to what you very accurately described as America’s gun-crazy culture.

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      • You know, Dave, it is difficult for me to understand the republican stance. It’s okay to have guns and kill. After all, what else are guns for? Yet, it is not okay for a woman to have the right to an abortion.
        ….. So, killing people is okay, but not the unborn.
        I am confused.

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        • Yes, it’s a total contradiction — “pro-life” and pro-death. Also a contradiction that Republicans insist on getting the government involved with women’s bodies, yet they don’t want the government involved with gun safety. A bunch of hypocrites. Still, there are some connections between the seemingly disparate positions — Republicans wanting power and control. And of course America’s far right is deeply sexist and misogynist.

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          • I have to agree with the sexist and misogynist.
            They however do like women in power who are brain washed into doing their male dominating bidding. (Amy Vivian Coney Barrett )
            As you know, Margret Atwood is not my fave writer. Still, the image of the women in The Handmaid’s Tale is haunting.
            I’ll bet that is exactly what the rs would like … domination over women and subservience by them.
            I could puke!

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    • Thank you, M.B. It IS hard to know what to say. What those kids went through (the ones who were murdered and the ones who survived) and what their families are going through is indeed beyond devastating. 😦 All for the sake of “freedom” for those obsessed with guns. 😦

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  7. Just a few days ago, a white 18-year-old whose manifesto revealed his desire to cleanse the country of Black people, the massacre at a Buffalo supermarket 
    This murderer was raised in an affluent sociely , from where tin hatered is coming from I wonder !

    Dave what has happened to America, a Country of immigrants , where Native Amaricans have become second class citizens.

    white supremacy ::::
    “they belief that the white race is inherently superior to other races and that white people should have control over people of other races ”

    This last murders of 19 in Uvalde was commited by a hateful teen .

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    • White supremacy is absolutely foundational– first as a colony, then as a nation.

      By the late colonial period, New England was shipping into bondage more Native Americans to the sugar holocaust of the West Indies than the number the entire nation imported of Black slaves from Africa during the same period.

      .See Article One, Section 1 of the US Constitution, wherein slavery is enshrined as part of the formulation for counting the population to determine Congressional districts.
      See the 1858 Dred Scott Decision, wherein, by a 7-2 majority the US Supreme Court found that there was, resident neither in US law or the Constitution outright, no reasonable expectation of US citizenship for Black Americans.
      See the election of 1876, wherein Republicans, the so-called party of Lincoln, swapped federal troops in the conquered Confederacy to enforce emancipation and civil rights law, in exchange for the presidency, which ushered in nearly a century of repression and denial of civil rights in the American south.

      See…

      Get the picture? Nothing new is going on beyond a return of

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      • You’re absolutely right, jhNY — white supremacy is in the very DNA of the U.S. 😦 And that ideology has reared its ugly head again and again during American history, as you skillfully pointed out.

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      • .. longstanding and ugly impulses resident among the majority population.

        One of the biggest differences of opinion in the US: White people think, in their magnanimity, they gave Black Americans their civil rights– subject to retraction. Black Americans thought they fought and won those rights.

        Wish I though we were better than we appear, us white folks. That’s why it’s been so important, for those of us who would deny our history, to suppress the 1619 Project.

        Sorry.

        “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”– Walt Kelly’s “Pogo”

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          • Yes, but since 1964, the majority of while males voted for the Republican candidate. Every time. If they don’t next time, it will be the first time.

            And white males own nearly all of those 20 million AR-15s …

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            • Definitely, jhNY. White males disproportionately vote Republican and disproportionately own guns — including the deathly AR-15. But still some decent white males out there… 🙂

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      • I remember so well , in KS, where I worked at the Medical Center , decades ago , on a Bob Dole`s sponsored grant on handicaps. That was the only time I voted for him.
        My boss was Dr. Samson.
        Anyways there were graduate students, and in summer they take Summer Students.
        One young man had a book in his hand, I asked him what it was.on ( white supremacy :)::“they believe that the white race is inherently superior !!

        I was so furious , then I found out that old dude was handing over this book to other students .I never had any idea what was circulating there..

        I was so naive , still believe there is certain goodness in human souls..\

        But now we see, hatered spewing out from so many.

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      • Step 1: hold onto the rope they pull you into the boat with.
        Step 2: cut the rope once you’re safe and dry.

        Benjamin Franklin wrote alarming things about the lately-arrived Pennsylvania Dutch before the American Revolution. It’s a tradition!

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        • My very close friend in Nashville , from Hungary came on a boat as refugees, she was 7 years old with parents and even a younger brother.
          Her father received his doctorate degree, un here , but was critical of everything in America. Her Mother was here and there did groceries and spoke in her broken English and couldn’t care less.

          My girlfriend learned to drive after she married, Father never allowed that.

          Now with her own Family are as American as an apple pie, but she always talks about her past. 

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          • The immigration experience is indeed different for everyone, Bebe, and immigrants have different feelings about the U.S. But what’s not in question is that immigration makes the U.S. a much better place.

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  8. Forgive me, Dave, but as Nick Lowe once proclaimed in song, I don’t think it’s funny no more.

    However, as a general plot device, in any novel at any plot point it’s always possible to completely change the narrative via gun. In the National Lampoon maybe a half-century ago, there was an article about writing which stated that wherever one found oneself in the story arc, it could all just finish by adding the sentence ‘Suddenly everybody was run over by a truck.’

    To keep abreast of the times, and future times,we might now employ this one: ‘Suddenly everybody was killed by an assault weapon.”

    Any discussion around gun control, specifically around control of assault weapons, must start from fact:

    Fact is, The AR-15 assault weapon, military-grade, two of them, were employed to murderous effect in that school in Uvalde TX.

    There are already 20 million AR-15 assault weapons in private hands here in the US, in mostly white, mostly white men’s hands. The “debate” is over. They won. Nobody any place is going to wrest those murder weapons from their owners now, nor is there any real likelihood that Congress will forbid future sales.

    20 MILLION!!!!

    No pohttps://abcnews.go.com/US/inside-rise-ar-15-style-rifles-america/story?id=78842406

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    • Thank you, jhNY! Yes, it’s not funny — and my humor was certainly strained. 🙂

      And, yes again, a post about guns and literature could be a short one if we just added “Suddenly everybody was killed by an assault weapon.” It would be one of the more realistic plots in modern fiction.

      The statistics you offered are beyond sobering, and I agree there seems to be no solution to this given how any guns are in circulation in the U.S., how despicable Republican leadership is, and how wimpy much of the Democratic leadership is. If America’s obscene gun violence isn’t a time for ending the filibuster when the Democrats are (narrowly) in power, when is that time? After the Republicans assume power again, they may never give it up because they’re more fascist than democratic.

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  9. HI Dave, this is such a terrible tragedy. We have a lot of crime issues in South Africa but nothing like this. I never comment on foreign politics, but with regards to the USA, I don’t need to because Stephen King always has plenty to say about how things work. His depiction of the role of the military in the ‘containment’ of the flu in The Stand was a real eye-opener. He made further hard-hitting comments in Firestarter and Dead Zone. I am so sorry so many Americans are feeling so disempowered right now.

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    • Thank you, Robbie! Very well said.

      Yes, the clear majority of Americans who want some gun-safety measures have been disempowered. 😦 That is the word, and it’s infuriating.

      And you’re right that Stephen King, in some of his novels, has a healthy skepticism about the military, government, and law enforcement. One of the many reasons I like his work.

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  10. My inner balance is off since a few years. A few days ago, for the first time, I said something that I thought I would never say. “I am an American by choice, a choice I would not make today.” It hit me like a freight train and I felt great disturbance when I realized I actually meant it. I am an American but nowadays I am grateful I never gave my European citizenship up.

    I came to this country, my country in the 80’s as a love migrant by marriage. From Austria/Italy to America and I was greeted with open arms and I embraced the people, the traditions, the language in the same way. Not all was good or perfect, but Americans were different then. I never feared, I never felt the need to lie about who I am, what I believe in political and religiously.

    Things have changed. I cant’ handle the mass shootings anymore, I don’t want to be afraid and wonder if I will witness one myself.

    Sometimes I wonder, do all of my neighbors have guns. I now put a “Guns not permitted” in my workroom, but the Ohio law will change in June. Now anybody can carry a concealed weapon and they don’t even have to tell you (not even law enforcement.) What sense does it make? Why? Do they want us to live in fear?

    Don’t you have to be willing to kill if you carry a deadly weapon? Are Millions of people really armed and ready to do just that? I shudder, just thinking about it. I am very fearful and not very hopeful.

    I had high hopes after Sandy Hook. I cried, I knew things would change, but they didn’t. If dead children don’t change this country, what will?

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    • Thanks so much for your heartfelt, eloquent, powerful comment, nonsmokingladybug. Such a shame that the U.S. — while having many great aspects and many great people — also has the scourges of gun obsession, virulent racism, huge economic inequality, too many vile far-right politicians, etc.

      I totally hear you about no longer feeling comfortable in the U.S. I’m U.S.-born, and can’t picture living in any other country because I’m so used to this one. But if I could wave a magic wand and be born in a different country, there would be many I’d pick over the U.S.

      Yes, with the mass murder of children at Sandy Hook not changing anything, it leaves any decent American with little hope. 😦

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    • Thank you, Rosaliene!

      Those gun ghouls are deliberately “blind,” of course. They know they’re sacrificing countless lives in exchange for the so-called “freedom” to be awash in guns. Meanwhile, it would be nice if kids and others had the “freedom” not to be murdered. 😦

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  12. I do think technology will win out when they discover their guns are useless against robots, which I consider the best alternative to law enforcement re: when law enforcement refused to enter the school. Boston Dynamics has created magnificent search and rescue robot dogs which are also currently being used by fire departments as well as military bases for security purposes.Yet as always, there’s a negative side to this. We have to imagine the future, and be prepared==no gun is going to help in those situations.Maybe hackers in case the robot programming goes awry; however, I doubt whether these gunowners have the intelligence to do that. Computer chips in guns would be helpful as well. It seems to me currently, that the GOP intends to medicate all children with anti-psychotics since they claim mental illness is the problem. Well this is longer than I anticipated, but literature and guns… I’m thinking Frankenstein shoots Frankenstein. As the Oscar Wilde said For each man kills the thing he loves Some do it with a kiss some with an assault rifle. Just as an aside, I can tell you from experience that I never met a man who hoarded guns who didn’t have some deep seated fear ==its all about masculine insecurity. Susi

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    • Thank you, Susi!

      Interesting take on technology — which, as you note, might be helpful but has some potential downsides in relation to protecting against guns.

      While Republicans claim mental illness is a big part of the problem, they’re of course wrong. Many Republicans probably don’t believe it themselves, but need bogus replacement excuses for the real reasons gun violence is a huge problem in the U.S. The biggest reasons, obviously, include too many guns in circulation and that it’s too easy to obtain them. After all, there’s plenty of mental illness in the countries with much less gun violence. And mentally ill people in most case are less violent than some people who are not mentally ill.

      Last but not least, SO true that most men who wield big guns are VERY insecure.

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      • Yes, its terrible that there are more guns in American than there are Americans in America, 10s more than any country on the planet. and the second amendment is all bs. I’ve yet to understand the well-regulated part when there are no regulations. In addition, one person is not a militia. If our forefather could only have imagined, which is not to say they were without imagination, but who had the time, they were busy fighting a war. I mean the fork wasn’t used until the 1600s. Interesting take by Vonnegut on guns: https://lithub.com/kurt-vonnegut-really-really-hated-guns/

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        • Fascinating link about Vonnegut! Thank you! His strong anti-gun feelings were very admirable. And, yes, the Second Amendment is horribly out of date, and, in modern history, invoked in ways the Founding Fathers never intended.

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    • Thank you, Rebecca, for those compassionate words. The families of the 19 murdered children and the two murdered adults are going through hell, and the community is in a lot of pain. The immense anger they must feel at the shooter, at the inept police response, and at Republican politicians who make it so easy for almost anyone to buy powerful weapons. 😦

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  15. Excellent timely post Dave.
    I need to say this.sorry for being political.

    The Politicians at the NRA meetings are old folks with money.
    They would not let go an inch. It is so important for them to win they become heartless.
    Musicians and so many of them have bowed out, they decided to cancel to attend. Mr. Lee Greenwood to name one.

    Armed police never barged in through the School doors, why ?
    Waited about an hour while this 18 year old killed all these innocent Children , who are the future of this Country !!

    Police had no problem breaking a door open and gunning down a person sometimes wrongly identified.
    Ted Cruz is an embarrassment and he is totally shameless.

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    • Thank you, Bebe! Many great points and observations.

      Yes, the heartless, corrupt, far-right NRA never compromises. I’m glad some people backed out of their convention this past week, although too many people still attended or spoke or performed. I read that Don McLean also backed out; I was shocked to hear he would perform in the first place.

      And you’re right that the police incompetently and cowardly messed up in Uvalde. What a travesty. Police are indeed often more aggressive when it comes to picking on innocent people, often Black.

      Ted Cruz is despicable.

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      • LOVE it..
        Fitzgerald’s famous closing line. They can all go to hell — though Satan might consider them too evil to welcome.

        I just hopeDdave, Trump`s days are numbered .
        I think he is a monster , no shame, never any remorse , and I do not want to compare him with any four legged animals, they have souls , trump has none.

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        • I completely agree about Trump, Bebe. It’s scary that he still has at least a partial hold on the Republican Party and Republican voters. He could be the 2024 GOP presidential nominee, and he could conceivably become president again (with the help of some voter suppression and Republican cheating). Terrifying.

          Yes, a cat or a dog or any other animal has much more of a soul than Trump does.

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  17. Dave, I think we overlooked the Lord of the Flies rewrite. The one where the military officer shows up on the beach with a crate of automatics and tells Jack he’s got what he’s been looking for. Because that’s just about what’s happening right now.
    Thank you for your post, and especially for finding a way to talk about this that doesn’t sound like the same conversation we’ve been having since Virginia Tech, Columbine, Newtown, Parkland…this list that is too heartbreaking to continue and that lobby-kept-lawmakers seem too cowardly to end.

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    • Thank you, Donna!

      That “Lord of the Flies” rewrite would be brilliant. More guns, and more-powerful guns — the “solution” that isn’t a solution.

      Yes, so much heartbreak and so much cowardice. The rest of the developed world looks at the U.S. as a joke, with awful policies that are in most cases not supported by the majority of Americans.

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  18. It renders me speechless, the mechanical expressions of public grief and routine commiseration of “church and community leaders” as much a cause of my numbness as the unstoppable madness itself. The gun ghouls are extremely happy with the way public reactions match their expectations: the pattern is as it should be; every actor is playing their bit part to perfection, the mourners in the streets, the democrats, the NYT, the churches. O yes, so it resounds within NRA HQ, the day of the mass shooting was another perfect day! That day has proved again that, no matter the extent and ghastliness of the crimes that we condone and abet, the nihilism that we preach shall prevail.

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    • Thank you, Dingenom! VERY well said.

      Yes, gun lovers love the scenarios you describe. The country stays divided, the far right once again “owns the libs,” the gun manufacturers delight in increased purchases by scared people, etc. And some of a demoralized populace will decide not to vote as they see how nothing changes — which helps the in-the-minority Republican far right. 😦

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      • I can see that Dave. I haven’t said too much cos I don’t live in your country but we have had school shootings here. Not on the regular scale of the US but yeah. Many years ago there was evena shooting here in a school shooting here in Dundee. At the time we were all utterly shocked. .

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        • Sorry that it happened in Dundee, too, Shehanne. 😦 Other countries have indeed had horrific school shootings or other awful gun massacres, but nowhere near as many as in the U.S. And some countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc.) that did have a mass shooting took significant gun-safety actions to reduce the chances of it happening again.

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          • Absolutely. I know the US has far more than other places. I personally feel when the right to bear arms was written into your constitution that these were very different arms and not the type people are bearing now. Nor did it say to bear them against innocent kids and teachers. That shooting in Dundee was in the 60s and it was a teacher after a class had been held hostage, the killer, a soldier–still in prison–having enough ammo to shoot them all. I remember my sister and her hubby coming in to our house unexpectedly that day cos they couldn’t get into their own which was beside the school and when they said why, we couldn’t believe it.

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            • Very true, Shehanne, that the U.S. has a certain gun culture in its history — and that the Second Amendment of the Constitution here sort of enshrined guns into law but of course that was more in relation to a militia at a time of much more primitive weaponry — as you note.

              Scary, terrible incident in Dundee in the 1960s. 😦 From what I’ve read, the U.S. has obscenely had more than 200 mass shootings in 2022 alone. A big country with a big population, of course, but still a total outlier in having much more gun violence per capita than any other “developed” country — as you also note.

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              • Oh yeah. I ain’t tryin’ tah steal your thunder xxx Seriously, I think what I mean is at that time in the 60s in little old Dundee this happened and it was like come on. Things like that didn’t happen in this country let alone Dundee, But it brought home that things like that can happen anywhere, far worse, far more often. Of course you can’t legislate for the lone nut who will get their hands on anything and use it too but you can make it hard as possible, end of.

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                • I hear you, Shehanne. Any incident like that, whether in Dundee or somewhere in the U.S., is an immense tragedy. And, yes, it can happen anywhere. But, as you say, it can be limited. In all kinds of ways.

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            • I do not know if any other developed nation has the right to bear arms written in its constitution. I would like to hear from someone who knows more about this subject than I do.

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              • Thank you, Tony. That’s a great question.

                Of course the right to bear arms outlined in the U.S. Constitution had more to do with arming a militia with primitive guns rather than arming individuals with high-powered AR-15 death machines. The Second Amendment seems very out of date. 😦

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            • Dave, I looked it up on the web and at the present time only Mexico and Guatemala besides the U.S. have the right to keep and bear arms written in their constitutions. However there are some nations that have laws allowing their citizens to own certain types of firearms.

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