Sunday, February 25, 2007

Second amendment Pummels First

I was cruising MSN news, as I often do, when I found this particular article . It's a happy little piece about some well known hunter, Jim Zumbo, (I had no idea who he was, but I don't hunt) who had pretty much just flushed his career because he said, basically, that using an assault rifle to hunt prairie dogs was idiocy. I happen to agree.

Needless to say, the NRA went ballistic. Though, to be fair, he did call assault rifles "terrorist guns". I think the politically correct term is "Extreme Peace Enforcement Tool".

Now, Zumbo was kind of an idiot, at least as a businessman. He's a hunter, an NRA member himself, and his livelihood is based on maintaining the following of other hunters and NRA members. Did he honestly not realize that the NRA and a bunch of gun-toting bambi killers (I say that tongue in cheek) would flip their lids at the suggestion that there is such a thing as too much firepower? Apparently he didn't.

All of this, though, is hardly worthy of mention. The NRA overreacting and its members being zealots is hardly newsworthy. What scares me is how quickly everyone moved to placate the NRA. This guy's hunting show was dropped like a hot rock, all the sponsors for the show wanted their ads pulled, Remington (it was mentioned that a this Zumbo used a Remington rifle that day in the same blog post) felt the need to issue a statement saying it did not endorse or approve of this guy's statements. The NRA is threatening to drop endorsement of pretty much anything within three degrees of Zumbo.

As if that wasn't bad enough Zumbo didn't even have the balls to stand behind his statement. His career was already flushed, you'd think he'd have the pride to maintain that killing rodents with weapons that military personal use to kill other military personal with is overkill, literally. He's tripping all over himself to apologize, all but groveling in apology. He's even said that next time he hunts it will be with an assault rifle. I'm sure all this publicity and NRA-boot licking has Charleton Hesston orgasmic with joy.

At the end of this article Harden, the author, suggests that the reason for all of this isn't just because Zumbo made a link between guns and terrorism (remember, guns don't kill people, angry minorities do). Harden says:

Zumbo's fall highlights a fundamental concern of the NRA and many champions of military-style firearms, according to people who follow the organization closely. They do not want American gun owners to make a distinction between assault weapons and traditional hunting guns such as shotguns and rifles. If they did, a rift could emerge between hunters, who tend to have the most money for political contributions to gun rights causes, and assault-weapon owners, who tend to have lots of passion but less cash.


In other words, the nutjobs in Montana who run training camps for when RaHoWa (a Neo-Nazi version of the apocalypse, it stands for Racial Holy War) finally happens, don't want the rich "sport hunting" Texans to figure out that there is a difference between only being able to kill ten things before having to reload and being able to kill fifty things before having to reload.

The NRA issued a statement saying:

It says that for the enemies of the Second Amendment there is no chance that the kind of divide and conquer propaganda strategy which preceded the 1994 ban on semi-auto firearms will ever succeed again.


I didn't know the personal opinion of one man on his blog counted as "propaganda".

To get my ducks in a row, an "assault rifle" is, fundamentally, a gun that can fire more than (I think) ten rounds without having to reload. They are not fully automatic; only one round is fired per pull of the trigger. When I first read this, I had to pause a moment, and wonder if maybe there was some anti-gun propaganda going on here (you know, using a big scary word so people hear it and assume the worst, like "weapons of mass destruction"). It isn't just anti gun propaganda. Think about it in terms of a school shooting (which is one of the things that precipitated the 1994 ban on semi-auto firearms. How much damage can ten rounds do before the shooter has to reload? How much more damage can fifty rounds do? The pause needed to reload is the opportunity that law enforcement may have to take down a criminal, and a chance for civilians to find better cover. Reloading may only take seconds, but it's still a pause.

Why do hunters need a weapon that can fire more than ten rounds without having to reload? The answer is, they don't. If you can't hit something in under ten shots, you need to find a new hobby (even I could probably manage to hit a moving target in ten shots, and I've fired a gun once in my life). So you can see why these gun-zealots are worried that people might make a distinction between the two.

Assault rifles aren't for hunting. You can use them for hunting, but you can also use a fork for hunting, or a grenade. That doesn't make them appropriate choices. The only thing assault rifles are made to do is kill people. That was their original intent, and to this day what they are used for. People hunting. Jesse Venture may have made a joke about hunting people (in poor taste, but not worth the drama it caused), but it's not really a joke. Spend a few minutes reading about Christian Identity, and it won't seem too funny any more.

Ideally, we wouldn't need gun control, because in my happy little utopia, no one would want to own one anyway (not even for hunting, not because I'm against hunting, but because I think bow hunting is an actual challenge and skill). Unfortunately, people do want to own guns for more than just hunting. They want to own them to use them on their fellow human beings. Be it in RaHoWa or to defend themselves against "armed intruders". Self defense is one of the biggest arguments for why we should own handguns and assault rifles, but how often do you hear of someone actually shooting an intruder? I'm sure it happens, but I can't think of a single time. This is fear-based reasoning that Americans so love. If you can make Americans afraid you can get them to agree to anything.

The NRA and other pro-gun lobbyist are using the same tactic George W. used to attack Iraq. Someone, somewhere, has something that can hurt you/us. In order to defend ourselves against this possible threat that might maybe happen sometime in the future, it is justified that we/you take extreme action in order to prevent this possible attack that may or may not happen sometime by someone who may or may not actually have the capacity to hurt us.

The idea that, somehow, the fact that any given person may be a gun owner deters crime is asinine. People have been murdering, steeling and raping for pretty much the entire history of the world. Having a hand cut off for picking a pocket wasn't enough to deter criminals; being hung on the spot for rape didn't deter criminals. Why the heck would getting shot deter them?

There are a lot of unfortunate things about the entire situation with Zumbo, and the things that all this implies. It's unfortunate that corporate America is afraid of the NRA. It's pathetic that Zumbo doesn't have the balls to have an opinion of his own. It's also sad that the NRA has to be such zealots, and that its members react by towing the party line, instead of actually stopping to think. What's more, and organization so dedicated the preservation of one amendment, is using its clout to repress another. Using guns to repress free speech.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

"Maiden" Voyage

I'm popping my blog's cherry. We've fooled around a few times, there's been some heavy posting, but we've never gone all the way. So, I'm finally going to do "it". Rest assured we're doing "it" with protection, I'm using spell check, I'd hate to end up with any accidents. I feel that post-life begins from the moment the curser touches the 'publish' button and the postling joins with the web and creates a blog. So no post-deletion for me.

Alright, I'll stop with the sex metaphors for my blog... for now... but I reserve my right to metaphor-production freedom, to resume my metaphoric activities at anytime. Look, I'm metaphoring right now, and I'm using both hands!

Okay, I swear I'm done this time.

Welcome to "Blogging With Balls"; a radically left wing feminist blog. Knowing where to start with this blog is rather difficult. I will admit that this is a very daunting task; how can I possibly ever right enough to do the broad-stroke idea of feminism any kind of justice? I can rant for pages on end, but how do I make this in any way meaningful? This blog is being started as a Senior Practicum for my Women's Studies minor, so not only does this blog need to be meaningful in a large sense of actually being more that a public stroking of me ego, it needs to actually, y'know, have a point.

I have, indeed, done a lot of 'heavy posting' for this blog. I've written half a dozen 'first posts' of varying length and subject, and not 'gone all the way', with any of them. At best they get 'save as draft'ed. Most of the time, I just delete. I just want my first post to be "special". You can see why the situation lends itself to my sex-metaphor. I've decided, though, that there is only one way to deflower my blog, though, and as you can see... it's messy, short, and probably unsatisfying. The pressure's off though, because there can only be one 'first post' and once it's done, with any luck, and some practice, my skill and blog-prowess will increase, and hopefully future postings will be satisfying for all parties involved.