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A clear case of insensitive cultural appropriation

California high schoolers write gun control legislation, will introduce it to local government

It can’t possibly any worse than what’s been coming out of Sacramento . . .

The resolution raises the minimum age to purchase a gun from 18 to 25, requires shooting and safety training for gun owners, stops online sales of firearms and closes the gun show loophole for gun purchases.

The students told the newspaper they had to modify the original version of the legislation, which did away with the Second Amendment entirely, in order to gain more support from the community.

“We can’t just satisfy one side, like politicians who oppose gun control and take big campaign donations from the National Rifle Association,” student Alejandro Salazar said.

courtesy 2acheck.com

How Corporate America Waded Into the Gun Control Debate

Mostly blindly and impulsively . . .

In the wake of a mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school in February, a social media movement sought boycotts of companies that offered discounts to members of the National Rifle Association. A slew of companies cut ties with the group. Institutional investors were also pressured to engage with the publicly traded firearms manufacturers they invest in, and retailers were encouraged to change their firearms sales policies.

“In addition to the concrete actions corporations are taking to reform their own policies or require more accountability from the gun industry, some businesses are taking extra steps and putting pressure on Congress to pass meaningful gun reforms,” the report found, citing action by Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc., Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp., Kroger Co. and L.L. Bean Inc. “Companies that provide services to gun makers and sellers—like bankers, accountants, and lawyers—as well as institutional shareholders, can help save lives in America by requiring that their gun clients adhere to commonsense policies.”

Will Dick’s Sporting Goods Be Hurt by a Gun Owners’ Boycott?

Probably not as much as we’d like . . .

The issue Dick’s Sporting Goods investors need to decide is how much sway gun owners have over the rest of its business — firearms sales, and MSR sales in particular, account for only a small part of the chain’s total revenue.

Dick’s operates 716 stores under its name, in addition to the few dozen Field & Stream locations and almost 100 Golf Galaxy specialty stores. MSRs had been relegated to the Field & Stream chain, and analysts estimate that since the broad-based hunting category itself represented only 10% of total sales, the controversial MSRs account for just a tiny percentage of that figure. Shedding them won’t meaningfully impact the company’s business.

Dick’s comparable-store sales fell 2% in the fourth quarter and were down 0.3% for the full year. While it was partly due to weak demand for firearms and other hunting merchandise, it was more because of problems with its relationship with Under Armour. It is Dick’s second best-selling brand behind Nike, accounting for around 12% of total sales.

courtesy theaustralian.com.au

Housekeeper describes chilling interaction with Las Vegas gunman before massacre

Sounds like the media’s preconceived ideas of every mass shooter ever . . .

A jailed man who gave a statement in November to police and the FBI recalled a man he believed to be Paddock telling him that Federal Emergency Management Agency “camps” set up after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 were “a dry run for law enforcement and military to start kickin’ down doors and … confiscating guns.”

“Somebody has to wake up the American public and get them to arm themselves,” the man said Paddock told him less than a month before the Oct. 1 shooting that killed 58 people and injured hundreds. “Sometimes sacrifices have to be made.”

In a handwritten account, a woman said she overheard a man she later said was Paddock talking with another man at a Las Vegas restaurant just three days before the massacre. She told police that Paddock seemed angry about the 1990s standoffs at Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge in Idaho.

courtesy melmagazine.com

Our Love of Guns Is Often Passed Down from Father to Son

Toxic masculinity at work . . .

Still, I never really thought about my fascination with guns, given America’s sweeping obsession with the object. It leads all nations with 112.6 guns per 100 citizens, per data from the Swiss-led Small Arms Survey and a 2012 congressional report. By the Small Arms Survey’s count in 2007, Americans own roughly half of the 650 million civilian-owned guns in global circulation, and the number has likely increased as imports of handguns and rifles has more than doubled since 2001. Sales are continuing to surge, too, with industry experts noting that 2016 was a record-breaking year for gun sales (2017 ranks second-highest, according to estimates from the FBI).

Unsurprisingly, the swell of sales has been largely powered by men. About three in 10 Americans own a gun, but 62 percent of gun owners are men, according to a 2017 report from the Pew Research Center. The pattern of ownership is a reflection of the deep ties between guns and masculinity, and the metaphors men use to consider their weapon. Critics may joke that a big gun is compensating for dick insecurities, but enthusiasts lean into the idea of a gun as a phallic extension of strength. And beyond that, many men who grew up with a gun view it as a critical link in their transition from boyhood to adulthood, for better and worse.

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55 COMMENTS

  1. Is Dick’s done? Most brick & mortar is in trouble without an active botcott…the Vegas shooter has been dead nearly 9 months and we still don’t know a damn thing😡

    • Dick’s won’t be done in by us. It will collapse because no company can get away with selling overpriced Oriental shit forever.

      • Working so far for UnderArmor, 5.11, REI, Cabelas, and 100 yuppis spawn stores such as GAP, Coles, etc etc. Been great for the chicoms though.

    • We knew within a couple days of the shooting that he was at the Women’s March, carrying anti-Trump signs and wearing one of those stupid pink hats. These new claims that he was some sort of right-wingnut are absolutely false.

      • Not only do I remember, but I still live it. Which was a shame, because I genuinely liked some of their stuff, like I genuinely loved my Yeti tumblers.

        But these days, there is plenty of competition that makes (as far as I can tell) identical products for slightly better prices without all the, y’know, statism.

        • Same here – I never give up a good boycott until it works, and even when it never will. Cutting ties with almost all hollywood movies and major TV networks, even if it means I miss out on things I want to see. I find myself with a LOT more free time, and I can cut back on my blood pressure meds ‘cuz I’m not so pissed all the time. So many actors/actresses who I honestly think are talented at their craft, yet I will no put money in the coffers of anyone or any group or any that actively seeks to degrade my rights in anyway whatsoever

        • A million companies make stainless tumblers with vacuum insulated walls. Most can be had for $10 or less, so you get same thing for the 1/3 the price as Yeti.

  2. The Paddock statements seem dubious at best. Length of time, context, and content all seem… strange. This guy is mad at .gov for Waco et al, and tells strangers, but not a word to his family? Ever?

    Also, if he wanted to rile people up, well, he targeted the wrong audience, to be blunt.

    • An unnamed man said he said … an unnamed woman said she overheard a man she thinks was Paddock tell another man …

      Buncha made-up bullshit.

  3. These Cali kids do not know present Cali law. CA has universal background checks, all sales must go through FFL, it does not matter the venue or whether it is a private sale. This eliminates any imagined gun show loophole. Online sales need to go through FFL no matter what state you are from, so they do not understand federal law either. As for changing the age to purchase to 25, it is Cali so that might fly.
    Not knowing present laws does put them on par with most of Cali politicians though.

    • In California anyone can write a law and the people can pass it without the politicians. Good old direct Democracy. How else could they ram through all the laws that California has? They can add anything into their state constitution regardless what the U.S. constitution says. At this point what difference does it make having children run their government? Write a constitutional amendment saying every kid gets free ice cream on their birthday as it’s their right to be happy on their special day.

      • Kids running cali government??

        I already thought they were?

        Leaving cali for Georgia in 7 days and counting!

        Free at last FREE at last!

    • My thoughts exactly. Internet gun sales ? Gun show loophole ? Someone needs to inform these child politicians. They obviously know squat about FFL procedure. Any , and all firearm sales go through strict procedural process.

  4. Just because ‘guns’ are a small part of their revenue doesn’t mean that I won’t find somewhere else to buy my workout clothing, shoes, my kids softball/baseball gear(bats, cleats, gloves etc) and my golf gear and golf gifts for my dad etc. To assume that hunter/gun owners only buy one category of equipment is stupid. I no longer shop at Dick’s, or Golf Galaxy and any other brand they own, or will own in the future.

    I did however go to Dick’s to try on the last pair of Nike shoes, the proceeded to purchase them from Rogue.

  5. Dick’s owns Golf Galaxy? I didn’t know that.

    Eh, Dick’s going under over this kinda thing was always an extremely unlikely scenario. People get wound up and say a company is “finished” over something all the time. Rarely does it actually sink the company unless it was already in serious trouble.

    Dick’s stepped in it on this one and I won’t do business with them for the foreseeable future. That said, I don’t generally do boycotts over shit like this because then I’d have nowhere to shop for much of anything other than firearms, ammo and fishing gear.

    I mean, if you think about it most grocery stores have an anti gun stance at some level. Ditto almost every non-outdoors type store. In fact, the only non-mom-and-pop store I’ve noted NEVER seeing a no gun sign, in any state I’ve lived in, is Home Depot. Other than that… well if you were a hardcore boycotter you’d have trouble eating unless you could hunt/grow/trade for everything you need and you certainly wouldn’t have anything to wear like jeans or a shirt.

      • On the other hand they pulled most of their gun mags and put the rest on the “dirty old man” shelf.

      • Sorry, Fred Meyer stores (a Kroger Company) is selling off all the guns and ammunition they have and will no longer stock these items. This all since the Parkland incident. So much for having a spine.

    • For me it wasn’t so much the announcement of no longer selling certain firearms, it was the hiring of an anti-gun lobbying firm to stop all sales across the nation. The Dicks (non-possessive on purpose) in my area was always overpriced on gun related items and most everything else. I did very little shopping there and took my firearm purchases to my LGS. Not purchasing from them was easy and now I only go in to look at and try on clothes and shoes. Someone else will get my money.

      Other places, I’ve had to weigh my desire for the item against their stance on varying issues. If it can be had somewhere else, great. If not, I grumble and bitch to my wife about having nowhere else to get it and have her buy it. 😉

    • I regularly open carry everywhere in my hometown except the post office, and only carry concealed in the bank, other than that, never a question from any of the business owners. I also open carry in Walmart, Lowes, and Menards. I don’t have a kid in school so don’t ever go there, so my current city is very much gun friendly, or at worst, gun agnostic.

  6. 112 guns per 100 people? All those people are old fat white guys? An entire nation of ofwg’s?

    Or maybe, just maybe we’ve been lied to about gun ownership dying off in this country.

      • This is purely conjecture, and I’m sure “pro gun propaganda”, but it seems like most folks who have a larger variety of guns would be the folks to not respond “yes” to a survey. I doubt I would. I tend to feel that we could safely double or triple the 300M number. Again, I don’t have solid facts to support this. It could be simply that the gun owners I know are particularly private regarding their ballistic affairs.

      • I really don’t want to speculate on how many guns are in civilian hands, but in collecting a few from between WWI and WWII, I have come across quite a few that are still in the original box with ammo bought at the same time. These are heirlooms in many families, many never or rarely fired.
        I think there are considerably more firearms in top drawers and under beds than is known. Americans have had firearms available that could be afforded by middle class families for well over 100 years. Yes, they were more expensive in man hours then, and that makes them family treasures.
        I am sure that many of these firearms may be known about by one member or generation of a family – keeping them secret from the irresponsible members. I hope that they will sell these to collectors if they wish to get rid of them, or better yet trade up for modern weapons and proper training.

  7. What’s the likelihood that Alejandro Salazar’s parents or grandparents are from Mexico or Brazil? Maybe they should have chosen a different person to quote.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/António_de_Oliveira_Salazar

    With the Estado Novo enabling him to exercise vast political powers, Salazar used heavy-handed censorship and a ubiquitous secret police to quell opposition, especially that related to the Communist movement.

    I think when I was in elementary school the female teacher made us write a letter to the president saying how awesome he was. They also brought cops in to teach us about authority and following the rules.

  8. Drive Dick’s into the ground. Firearms and related items might only make up 10% of their gross, but 10% is a hell of a bite from stockholders. Add to this the ripple of family and friends not buying anything in the wake of their seditious actions and we might drive up the missing profit another 5%. All this while supporting their competition which moves Dick’s further to the rear of market share. Boycott the Dick at Dick’s.

    • Don’t just boycott Dicks. The companies supplying the largest part of their stock and inventory, boycott them too. Starting with Nike. The’re leftist shills anyway.

  9. Okay, so the Mandalay Bay shooter wanted to fight gun control by murdering as many pro gun people he could by using AR-15s and AR-10s with bump fire stocks after he failed to pay a measly $500 per gun to get them illegally converted into select fire? He needed to use dozens of ARs, thousands of rounds, a bunch of 100 round mags, steel core and incendiary rounds, Tannerite, etc, to get Americans to arm up against the ATF and FBI?

    That’s completely the opposite of why the Mandalay Bay shooter did what he did. No wonder the government “redacted” the names of those “witnesses.” The shooter obviously — based on the evidence — was anti gun and wanted to start a “March For Our Lives” campaign to repeal the 2nd Amendment. The motive is quite clear: he wanted to give the government the best case to pass any laws they want; it was a gift to anti 2nd Amendment politicians or aspiring (authoritarian) politicians to use to get elected. That’s why the entire U.S. government cannot figure out why this elderly man, who was raised in California, decided to move to Vegas and spend a year planning such an attack.

    • I don’t necessarily disagree with what you said, but regarding the $500, I think you might have misinterpreted the article (which was poorly written). Quote: “The man said Paddock became upset and launched into a tirade about gun control when the man rejected an offer of $500 apiece to modify semi-automatic guns to fire automatically.” My interpretation is that Paddock offered the man $500 to modify a gun for automatic fire. However, that doesn’t make sense, given that is a measly small amount of money compared to multiple tens of thousands he had already spent on his foray into domestic terrorism.

      Given our governments MO, this feels to me like a “don’t look over here” bullshit misdirection, whitewashing the storyline to avert attention to a new group .gov already wanted to target – in line with past FBI infiltration of right wing militia organizations.

      The only way I could see this newly released info making sense was if Paddock had honestly wanted to stoke a harsh gun control response for the purpose of producing an insurgency against the government overreach he helped produce. Someone so morally bereft as Paddock, who had no qualms about laying down thousands of rounds on innocent civilians, may very well entertain such wild logical leaps of fancy.

      But I really don’t know and I doubt there will ever be a definitive account that all can agree to.

    • The shooter was a leftist, probably Saudi, who wanted to stir the feces pot. That shooter shot the owner of those weapons and obviously had other shooters on the second floor, according to videos.

  10. “California high schoolers write gun control legislation”

    Well, I always knew that a bunch of chlamydia-infected, poorly-educated, mentally defective, pubescent drooling retards wrote the gun control laws. This confirms it.

    Interesting, isn’t it, that the same group of morons who blame the NRA are actually being killed by their classmates, none of whom were members of any organization except possibly the Junior Douchebags of America.

    • ^ OMG
      This is THE best representation of “Carlin humor” I have read since George died and went to wherever to see how big god’s d!ck really is.
      (Ya gotta know his material to understand.)
      Thnx Ralph ! Made my night.

    • Do you know why Leftist adults think that students are just as smart as adults?

      Because they are correct…..but said another way……Leftist adults are as infantile and stupid as tide-pod eating teenagers.

  11. Don’t measure the impact on dicks based upon percentage of profit derived by firearm sales.

    Measure it on the percentage of total sales lost due to firearms owners refusing business.

    • Act locally and spread the message near and far. That’s how boycotts succeed.

      It is about time we start divesting from anti-2a banks too, and transfer funds to those who agree with our philosophy.

      Anyone want to make a list of people/anti banks. From memory:

      Anti-2a: Citigroup, Bank of America
      Pro-2a (or ambivalent): Wells Fargo

      Am I missing anyone?

      Act now!

  12. I call BS on those Vegas killer conversations. You mean to tell me that a guy who owns and can fly an airplane is ticked at the government, so he shoots up a country music festival? Get fv<k!g real.

    • This. In 2010 a tiny aircraft flew into an IRS building (Of course nobody remembers it because the suicide note talked about wanting government health care and disqualified him from being right wing) and pretty much wrecked the place. From the sound of it this guy had a private jet or could obtain one.

  13. “, but 62 percent of gun owners are men,”

    Which means 38% are women. A 60-40 skew in a demographic is basically non-existent, especially when all evidence suggests that gap is not only shrinking, but may head in the other direction (CCPs now favor women). I’d love to see Pew’s methodology too, because I’m sure there are no shortage of couples that consider the shotgun next to the bed (ect.) “ours” (no matter what the 4473 says).

    • Men buy the family’s firearms and the spouse and children get access to these firearms. Don’t men usually buy or pick out cars(or at least have some input?). This is being the man of the family. Wifey knows groceries and labor saving appliances, the man knows cars and guns.
      I am writing in general here, but I am sure you get my drift – so of course men “own” a higher percentage of firearms than women. Break into this house and you will be shot by an expert – my wife, who could handle my muscle car better than I and can shoot better.

  14. Why does a 60/40 male/female split on gun ownership mean that guns are all about “toxic masculinity” and phallic symbols? Maybe you guys are holding your words when I’m around, but I don’t hear POTG making gun-phallus metaphors. That’s the domain of gun grabbers (maybe that’s why they want to grab them?)

    Anyway, many of us in the nearly 40% of gun owners are getting tired of written off as non-existent.

    Yes, illiberal America, more and more women are buying guns and teaching our daughters to shoot, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with reproductive organs or sexual desire.

  15. “It can’t possibly any worse than what’s been coming out of Sacramento” Please start proof reading your articles.

  16. Government discovers mass-shooter inspired by government gun control
    Government ops to pursue additional gun control

    That’s assuming this highly convenient, year-after tale isn’t completely fictitious. Uh-huh, the LVPD and FBI are so damn professional they’d have sat on this motive for a full year without leaking a word. Uh-huh.

    Whatever happened to all that money he spirited out of the country to his wife’s contacts in the Philippines?

  17. “The students told the newspaper they had to modify the original version of the legislation, which did away with the Second Amendment entirely, in order to gain more support from the community.”

    Wait, I’m repeatedly told nobody wants to eliminate the 2nd amendment. After reading the article, one could almost reach the conclusion that they DO want to repeal it, but just can’t say so out loud. Ah, probably just my over active imagination.

  18. Since a good majority of these mass killers feed their hate with socia media I wonder why the students aren’t proosing on a ban of the use of social media until age 25. Social media has only existed for the past 10-15 years which probably correlates with the perceived gun-grabber message that mass shootings have increased over the past decade or so.

    Hmmmmm.

  19. “The resolution raises the minimum age to purchase a gun from 18 to 25, requires shooting and safety training for gun owners, stops online sales of firearms and closes the gun show loophole for gun purchases.”

    Inevitably with carveouts for Sacramento Police and such, of course.

    When was the last time there was a gun show in Sacramento?

  20. Ya know, I always wondered about revolutions, whenever I saw/read/heard about them.
    One thing always happened.
    ‘Intellectuals’, and teachers were always killed.
    I always thought that was dumb- you can’t build an intelligent society by slaughtering the educators.
    Then I see what California schools are producing.
    Now I understand.
    Ya know- it might not be such a bad idea…..

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