“In the tactical mindset there are good guys and there are bad guys, and they are always perfectly easy to tell apart. Who are the good guys? The semiotics of tactical websites make it pretty plain. Eagles and American flags. Invocations of 9/11. The pictures featured on the Northwest Suburban Tactical Training Center website include a self-assured business-man. And women: a teacher, a mom, and an apparent college student. All the females are blond. The proverbial good guys with guns, said to be the only thing that can defeat a bad guy with a gun. The bad guy is represented on the NRA’s ‘Don’t Be a Victim’ site as a black silhouette looming at the corner of the screen. I always want to ask these tactical instructors: how do you know you’re not training him?” – Rick Pearlstein in Ronald Reagan pointlessly packing heat as president only makes sense in gun nut fantasyland [at rawstory.com]