Nichole Perkins writes about the life of Maya Angelou: “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings may have been styled after slave narratives, but it was unique in its storytelling because Angelou wasn’t trying to uplift all Black people. She didn’t write for a white audience in order to gain its empathy.”
A gun safe might be a good place to store your gun when you’re not actively defending your home against the crazed mobs of Obama’s America. But Baretta, the Italian gun manufacturer, has some other ideas in its new “down and dirty” guide to hiding handguns around the home. Like … in the cereal! Or in the laundry hamper! More great ideas here.
Last month there was a major stir when a study came to light suggesting that America was no longer a democracy but rather an oligarchy, a system in which the policy preferences of the very wealthy consistently held sway over those of everyone else. The authors of the study, Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page weren’t crazy about the ‘oligarchy’ terminology. But the findings fit into a larger discussion of wealth inequality and the threat it may pose to American democracy itself.
On Friday at 3 PM, Professor Gillens will join us at The Hive (sub req) to answer your questions about the study or on the general topic of wealth inequality and how wealth affects policy preference impact on the American political system. Get your questions in now.
In The Hive (sub req), we’re discussing this question of what criminal liability there should be for people who legally carry firearms into public/family establishments but take so little precautions that they – for a variety of different reasons, mainly rooted in derp – end up inadvertantly shooting people. Join us here.
Today’s Cafe piece from David Shorr on the lazy critique that both sides are to blame is a must-read: “because the ‘plague on both houses’ complaint has stayed such a popular flavor of critique, we have to keep reminding ourselves of the facts.”
Ed Kilgore weighs in on the messy Mississippi Senate primary between incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran (R) and tea party upstart state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R): “But with the radicalization of the conservative movement and the Republican Party that has intensified during the Obama presidency, the perceived value of Cochran’s Grandee position has steadily declined, and he’s in real danger of being seen as that most hated figure, a Scalawag.”
Setting aside why you really need to bring your loaded handgun to Walmart, just why do we have all these cases of people dropping, bobbling, bending over and having their gun fall out, strike the ground and discharge into someone’s arm, leg, butt, etc.? Police virtually always have a holstered gun on them. And you really seldom ever hear of one of them having this happen. TPM Reader AZ has some thoughts on the matter, tying back to TPM Reader SG’s question about criminal liability …
Your reader’s question about “accidental” discharges of firearms and the responsibility of the person carrying the gun requires some more detail.
I should say that my contact with guns was in my time as a soldier in the Swiss military. One of the things they drilled into us was that whenever we moved with the weapon (an assault rifle) the safety catch had to be on–to prevent accidental discharges.
Apropos of this incident where a woman was accidentally shot in the arm in an Indiana Walmart, TPM Reader SG has a question …
And what, pray tell, is the man being charged with? The original story does not mention a charge in the case, which leads me to believe he’s not being charged with anything.
Group of North Carolina legislators introduces legislation which calls for “convention of the states” after determining, among other things, that the federal government has “ceased to exist.”
UCSB alum Shannon Kelley writes a moving essay about the “twisted world” shooter Elliot Rodgers lived in. It’s worth a read.