From TPM Reader EW …
In VT, during hunting season last fall, one saw pickups with gun racks on the side of the roads. Many of the trucks had Obama bumper stickers on them. So VT is different. It has no gun laws at all, yet it is way down the list in terms of gun deaths, but not near the bottom.
TPM Reader JN checks in …
I don’t know if you have gotten any comments like mine, but here goes. It’s more than the self-aggrandizing Red Dawn Fantasy. It’s about what many blue collar white males claim to fear but secretly hope for-a race war.
This morning’s Times contains an oped by David Rothkopf with a deep critique of President Obama. The upshot is that Obama is simply a bad manager, coming into the presidency with no executive experience. And many of the key failures of his time in office stem from that single fact.
After you read it, if you’re game, I’m curious to get your feedback. Both from observers from a distance and from those more up close. Broadly, it doesn’t ring true to me. For two basic reasons. Read More
Video of Obama’s official swearing-in ceremony from a short time ago. Watch.
I agree with TPM Reader AK that the Red Dawn fantasy is what keeps both sides of the gun debate from coming up with sensible approaches to dealing with gun violence …
I’ve been a regular TPM reader for almost 10 years. I consider myself a progressive Democrat. I’m also a gun owner and an army veteran. And I’m rapidly creeping up on Social Security age.
In considering SS’s question, “… in precisely which “tactical” scenarios do all of these lunatics imagine that they’re going to use their matte-black, suppressor-fitted, flashlight-ready tactical weapons?” I think we have to talk about what I call the Red Dawn fantasy.
Top Obama advisor says GOP “caved” on debt limit hostage threat.
Scenes from Saturday’s inauguration kickoff in Washington.
Video from earlier this morning of Justice Sonia Sotomayor swearing Joe Biden into his second term as vice president, at his official residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington (begins at the 3:50 mark): Read More
For my money, the most edifying email we’ve gotten during the post-Newtown gun debate was the one from TPM Reader SS (‘Tactical Reality‘) back in mid-December. TPM Reader MJ seems to have had a similar experience …
I was struck by something in ZB’s letter. I grew up in the Appalachian somewhat rural South (western North Carolina) and now live in suburban upstate New York. While I agree that there’s a distinct rural/urban split in attitudes toward guns, it seems to me that there’s been a big change in the rural attitudes over the last 30 years or so. The Bushmaster “man card” ads typify it for me.