Ehh.... how about another rambling Tom story?

You might remember Tom? He's the more "blue collar" progressive friend of Mr. A.

Now I could tell the story of a "tongue and cheek" tabletop idea of Tom's.

Basically the paranoid right wing fantasies are... dun dun dun... right! That's fascinating for what he doesn't say. See the game is limited to right wing paranoia being communist-Muslim-gays and harry potter being satanic and chemtrail stuff.

And not things like: The IRS is punishing people based on politics.  The AFT shipping guns to Mexican drug lords.  The NSA spying on everyone's email. The President wants to ban guns.

But as Glenn Reynolds says. "Yeah but they keep raising the bar on what it takes to be ridiculous: 9 Utterly Ridiculous Conspiracy Theories."

And his views on guns are interesting.  He doesn't like them, and he doesn't like the gun culture. (There's also some daddy issues at work here. He doesn't want his dad being able to carry a gun.)  But  he'll readily confess the gun control won't work in the US.

And he'll begrudgingly admit that gun control has a racist history, falls disproportionately on the poor,  and the police are totally except.  And this is amazing from someone who is a big anti-rich, the republicans are racist, the cops are corrupt class warrior.

Heck, he'll bemoan the police abuse against the "mostly peaceful" occupy protesters while admitting that armed 2nd amendment protests don't get the hickory shampoo.

But then he'll go on about how gun rights seem to come at the cost of "open season on minorities".  He doesn't have numbers to show that gun control reduces white on minority violence, and because he doesn't actually advocate for gun control he doesn't have too!

Oh as a bonus,  he lives in Massachusetts and his bosses-boss is one of those "connected assholes" (his words) that can get a carry permit.

So he gets to bemoan gun rights, without actually having to face the arguments that refute his position.

And thus he'll occasionally mention some tragedy.  Like a father shooting his daughter when she snuck into the house and he thought she was a burglar.  Or a child accidentally shooting a sibling.

And he'll blame the gun culture.  And when it's pointed out that gun control is all about "abstinence only" education and that gun rights people are the biggest gun safety people and are very big on the Rules, he brushes it aside with a "Well, *some* gun rights people and organizations are big on safety".

Here's a comparison that made the penny drop for me. 

Imagine someone who is all "eww teh gay" and "The bible says Adam and Eve!"

Now imagine this person looking at the various court rulings and going: "Oh guess we're doomed to have gay marriage."

Now imagine this person rooting around for "crime of passions"  where the victim and murderer are the same sex.  And using these examples to denounce same sex marriage while bemoaning that its too late to stop it.

The upside? The guy won't actually advocate for gun control.   So there's that.

But he thinks of it less like a rights or even policy issue and more like a cultural greegree.


On a somewhat related note I've seen people who brim with oikophobia at the idea of  heathens from Utah carrying in NYC admit that magazine and assault weapons bans are stupid. Then they'll go and say the gun debate is pointless and doesn't even address the "real issue of violence".

This has happened a few times.  Heck Cracked even did an article with this exact theme.

Again you have someone conceding "Sure gun control is stupid"  but they can't admit that the gun rights people are... right.

See the people who are arguing for banning guns because they look scary, and the people who don't want to go to jail because they own the wrong type of stock are *equally* to blame for not addressing the "real issue of violence".

It couldn't possibly be that the former is a mite more exploitative than the former.

My guess is that they're saying "Sure gun control is wrong, but! That doesn't mean you gun nuts are right!"

Hell, I've had the Mr. A's friend lament that discretionary issue "isn't binary."  See he didn't like the idea of cops being empowered to deny something to people for any reason, but he felt all icky with the logical result being that all those stupid commoners could carry.

So he had to invent a third option.