Friday, December 3, 2021

Cracked Mondern Gun Control started out as Racist.

In an article that points out how "good intentions" and "nice sounding" goverment programs have racist roots.  Michael Dawson point out the that modern gun control started out as explicitly racist.


Which is interesting because on  January 20, 2021 Michael Dawson wrote for cracked. The 4 Racist Defining Moments In Gun Control History.

Which I commented on here.

In fact this current article seems to crib the section about the Mulford Act from his previous article.

But hey, it still counts.

Monday, September 13, 2021

Cracked: The Masculinity Industry

It's more guns adgacne in the end.  And has some good points but Cracked's article about the "Masculinity Industry" is goes in some 'interesting' places.

Such as a few sexist comments implying how women who buy guns for self defense might as well be men.

"Strong overlap between guys who love cops and the military, and guys with zero trust in them to keep us safe. "

Which....   turn that over the head.  What about the overlap between those who think the cops are structurally racist and will use prohibitionist laws disproportionaly against minorities annd then want to give the cops more power by banning more things.

If you think the War on Drugs was a racist assault on civil liberties, imagine a War on Guns.



Or this

If you browse, say, Reddit’s concealed carry group, the average gun owner sounds responsible and happy to chastise dinguses with Rambo fantasies. But concealed carry, despite sounding so American that George Washington probably walked around with a little flintlock shoved under his wig, is yet another aberration. 2.7 million Americans had concealed carry permits in 1999 but, after intense lobbying by the NRA and other advocates to loosen laws, that number’s now almost 20 million. 


It's not good enough to be responsible.  And note that they complain about how gun laws were loosened,  you know from the racist way they were in the past when Police could ban people they con't like from carrying guns even though they passed a background check and took the required training. 

A racist history Cracked has pointed out.

But … why? A majority of Americans have, for decades, believed that crime rates are rising. And, for decades, they’ve been wrong. Media and politicians mislead us about how dangerous America is, petty crimes like vandalism lead to the mistaken assumption that serious crimes are also rampant, a high-profile crime across the country can convince us that we’re next, and all while the actual statistics keep improving. 


Hmm, it's not just the "masculinity industry" that  uses a single high profile crime to convince people that they're next.

Between 2019 and 2021 the U.S. Concealed Carry Association, which teaches self-defense and trauma care, saw its membership jump from 300,000 to 600,000. Their success came from their focus on family protection. The USCCA is far less combative than the NRA, and they emphasize that part of being safe is avoiding fighting. But they still talk about America as a place where you’re perpetually on the verge of fending for yourself a gunfight. 


Note how they slip into "training is bad".

The USCAA says 40% of their members are Democrats. If that’s not conservative enough, you can join one of America’s growing militias, but if that’s still too conservative then you can check out the John Brown Gun Club, the Socialist Rifle Association, or another rapidly growing leftie gun group. The language they use is different, but it’s still the same message: learn to protect yourself before things go to hell. Did I mention the study that suggests gun ownership for personal defense is driven by fear?  


So.... the acknowledged that gun rights groups are all political stripes and there are minority groups.... and then immediately dismisses them as "driven by fear"  that seems.... a bit racist. 


Now to give the article credit they don't go for cheap solutions.  They don't even demand gun control, though the implication is there.  They even talk about the problem of suicide.


And the solution isn’t to continue the endless churn of videos that tell guys to bury all emotion, barricade themselves against the imaginary wolves at the door, and become the kind of man that never really existed. 

The problem with this advice.  It's not just the "Masculinity" folks who tell men to bury all emotions.  The stigma that mocks men for being weak for opening up, or for dismissing the problems of others, is very broad in today's society.

Heck, even this article itself is framed as "stupid men with their stupid fears and stupid feelings".

Thursday, February 18, 2021

Cracked Bad Neighborhood myth

 https://www.cracked.com/article_29510_4-lies-that-need-to-stop-being-spread-about-bad-neighborhoods.html

Numerous policing initiatives have come and gone over the years, one failing right after the other, like the infamous stop-and-frisk program implemented by then New York mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2003 that gave cops the power to search random "suspicious" people on the assumption that they might carry drugs or guns. As you could probably tell, most of these initiatives were steeped in racism, as critics often attacked programs like stop-and-frisk as unfairly punishing non-white people.

But surely, some of these programs had to be good, right? Not exactly. The controversial stop-and-frisk program actually did not result in much, if any, crime reduction. When the program expired, crime rates actually dropped, which sounds almost contradictory if you don't consider the fact that crime naturally decreases over time. Second off, a fair amount of arrests made by cops don't actually reduce crime that much or are actually false arrests. 


Now will other gun control programs and policies  result in racist enforcement by police?

If you think Bloomberg's Stop and Frisk is surely an Anomaly. Well... Bloomberg is a major donor and defacto boss of most of the Gun Control orgs in the US.  Or that his legal team helps write most of these laws

And it's not like the the last Federal Assault Weapon Ban was packaged with a mandatory minimum tough on crime law.

This is by the same Michael Dawson who nearly a month ago wrote Gun Control's Massively Racist History    Who made a credible case that Gun Control in the US is a racist, not just in it's far history but that the majority of current laws were made with a racist animus.

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Cracked: Gun Control's Massively Racist History.

Wow  this is acutally a really good article that points out the whole racist history of gun control with plenty of examples:  The Mulford Act, Slavery, how Gun Control was used by the state to go after minorities, and that Gun Control was selectively enforced just to punish people the state didn't like

I mean when this is in the opening section: 

For starters, much of America's gun control today was precisely informed in response to Black activists arming themselves against white supremacists, like ...



Now it does get a bit... well part of what it says about the NRA's history and dumpsterfire is correct but the way it ends...

It wasn't until 1971 when the feds raided Kenyon Ballew, a lifelong NRA member, on suspicion of hoarding a bunch of illegal guns and shot him, making him paralyzed for life, that the NRA finally decided that this whole "let the government take our guns'' thing maybe wasn't in their best interests after all. Shocker. The proceeding outrage led to a striking change in the group's attitude, helping form the modern "gubbermint tyranny!" NRA that you see to this day.

The funny thing is, the Black Panthers basically said the same thing about needing guns to protect from government brutality, which the NRA cribbed completely, pretending that they had always been pro-gun rights. Seems like the second amendment only matters for white people.


And then the article goes on about how goverment tyranny and gun bans aren't... paranoia.  They are things that have happened.

Now... what keeps current gun control laws from being racist?


Cracked has pointed out numerous times issues with law enforcement in the US.  And we've seen how relatively recent Gun Control policies like "stop and frisk" are basically "walking while black."


Or what about May Issue Laws,  where for a citizen to get a gun permit they have to convince the Police that they have a justifiable need?  Does anyone see how that might be abused for racial ends?


Or what of an  expensive registration plan where say someone has to pay 200 dollars per Assault Weapon to have them registered with the government?  That puts a class basis right in there where guns are priced out of poor people's hands.

Also ironic that this article drops right as Biden is inaugurated.

Saturday, January 9, 2021

Cracked: The police are Horrible Racists: Let's give them more power!

Remember how yesterday Cracked was hoping that Congress would pass some strong gun control in reaction the Sacking of the Capitol (where the only person shot was by a cop...)

Well today Dan Duddly (who you've seen before) is comparing a bad action flick of taking over (and holding hostages) in the Whitehouse, versus a mob in the Capital that didn't capture anyone and was chased out

But it gets better, when talking on how they rioters get in:

Armored assault vehicles? Who needs em? Just ask the police nicely, and they'll let you through the gates.

 

Of course, maybe that wouldn't have worked since the terrorists in Olympus Has Fallen were North Korean, and the ones attacking the Capitol on Wednesday were um ... well, look at the videos and see if you can pick out a common theme. 


So they're gonna mainstream that theory? There it is. 

Given yesterday's plea for gun control Cracked thinks that racist cops who (in this specific case worked with literal pillaging vandals), and Cracked has have at many many times exposed US law enforcement institutional corruption,  sympathized with BLM.... shoudl have more police power. 



Friday, January 8, 2021

Cracked: Look to the Wisdom of Tick Tock Teens

 So.... in a violent riot on the Nation's Capit0l where the only person shot was a rioter so by a cop...   And no one else who died got shot... Cracked had to find a way to make it about gun control.

And boy did they.   They went to the Students Demand Action style well by trying to get the Congress folks to think of their fear and how it would be for students.  Of course the difference is Congress had armed security that drove off the rioters, in one case with lethal force.

With their help, they can build a nation where no student, teacher or Congressperson ever experiences this horror again. 


Note the universality. How in a country of 300 million people, and 100 million guns could even the most draconian law ensure that?

Do you want the police, you know the folks Cracked has been rightly pointing out their abuses to have even more power?