Category Archives: Media Criticism

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

AR-15s

21 Comments

Why young women want them:

Imagining ourselves in a high-stress, violent situation, we want a gun with enough ammo, and more, to get the job done. Sometimes, you only get one shot. At other times, you may need more. When you don’t have time to reload in the heat of a home invasion, the AR-15’s 30-round magazine gives you the flexibility and security a handgun will not.

High-capacity magazines serve as a life-saving insurance mechanism, a self-defense back-up if something doesn’t go according to plan. Yet you would never think of these guns in this sense by listening to anti-gun zealots and their allies in media.

Assault rifles and high-capacity magazines have been under fire from our nation’s legislators since the Newtown massacre. It only took Senator Dianne Feinstein two days to announce her intention to reinstate the Clinton-era assault-weapons ban to get “these dangerous weapons of war off our streets.” New York governor Andrew Cuomo took it upon himself to make his state the first to tighten gun laws post-Newtown, proudly outlawing magazines over seven rounds because “no one needs ten bullets to kill a deer.”

Senator Feinstein and Governor Cuomo: We may not need ten bullets to kill a deer, but we sure need them in our own defense. Criminals rarely use assault rifles. Nearly ten times as many murders are committed with hammers and clubs, and 35 times as many with knives. Does that mean we need to ban those too, Senator Feinstein? Banning assault weapons will only take weapons away from my house — not from criminals on the street.

God made man and woman. Sam Colt made them equal.

Of course, it’s not really about keeping them away from criminals, unless you consider free men and women who might thwart your plans for them to be inherently criminals.

Humor, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Satire

The Romney Inaugural Address

4 Comments

Heh:

We have learned from the last four years that it is a mistake to rely on each other and to work together. It is my firm belief that one man, by himself, can train the nation’s math and science teachers—and probably, if he really tries, the nation’s English teachers as well. One man, acting alone, can build all the labs and networks and roads we need. When he is not training those teachers. Yeah, I’m talking about the same guy. What we must resolve never to do is work alongside one another.

Has there ever been prior president so given to outrageous straw men and refusal to grant good faith to his political opponents?

Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary

Obama’s Un-American Beliefs

5 Comments

The NRA has higher approval than him because his (and the “progressives”‘) views are out of the mainstream.

[Update a few minutes later]

The bigotry behind the push for gun control:

We notice two things these three men have in common. First, there is no indication any of them have ever misused a gun, either accidentally or deliberately–in contrast to Marshall’s correspondent, who nonetheless evinces a smug sense of his own superiority over them.

Second, they all have eccentric political views, which Marshall’s correspondent seems to think is an argument for taking away their guns. Never mind the Second Amendment, do these guys even respect the First?

Not really. They just pay lip service.

Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Space, Technology and Society

A Plague On The Earth

7 Comments

That’s what misanthrope extremist David Attenborough thinks of humanity.

I suspect he also wants to confine the infection to a single planet.

And as always, my advice to such people is to lead by example.

[Update a while later]

Here’s another person who should lead by example. Paul Ehrlich, who’s been wrong about pretty much all of his predictions for forty years, says that no one has a right to twelve, or even three children.