74 Comments

It doesn't work because the framing around trans rights is that they protect something that a person *is* and not merely what a person *does.* You can't adopt that same framing with gun ownership, it's a fundamentally different *kind* of individual liberty. Anyone who hates AR15SH can ban simply guns in the library (if they're not already) the same way they already ban guns in your local post office or courthouse, without messing with any questions about whether you are suppressing a sincere form of personal expression, or worse, a key aspect of personal identity inseparable from the person.

This is aside from the other objections about how it won't work simply because you're trying to do a 5GW cultural victory in a world where your opponent controls the propaganda machine necessary for a 5GW cultural victory. You live in a world where setting fire to a police station is a peaceful protest, definitely not terrorism, and millions of dollars in bail funds and legal aid are standing by to ensure that you face no consequences for it, but taking an unguided tour through the capitol gets you locked up for years without charges while every single entity nominally devoted to civil liberties and justice system accountability, who will stick their necks out for actual murderers, looks the other way.

As the saying goes, the master's tools will not dismantle the master's house

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May 11, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

How dare you deny my hoplite identity? What are you, some kind of hoplophobe?

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May 11, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

Highland kilts are pretty buff too.

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They already won when they convinced you that cross-dressing is a expression of a person's immutable True Self, rather than just some aberrant, 'scuse me, "uncommon" behavior.

That's why they had to do "gay" first. One step at a time!

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Gun ownership is indeed something a person does rather than something a person is.

And so is every flavor of Alphabet personhood.

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Well said. In a world where our opponents control all nodes of power, withdrawing from the corrupt culture and becoming as physically and mentally self-sufficient as possible is the only effective form of resistance.

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May 10, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

Y'all got any more of that there normalization?

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May 10, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

Well... you could take a glance through the entertainment media complex, from comic books through Netflix and Hollywood, all the way to those AAA Games that get so many young hearts and minds. Maybe write a guest post!

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author

^^^^^

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I don't think so.

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May 10, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

This would be best done by private schools or charter schools who take kids to an outdoor setting, like a gazebo or park or creek. Much harder to freak out and ban the practice than if its being done in a library. Just kids in a field (which kids love outdoor school days) and a guest reader who has an unloaded firearm. I see no way for government action to ban or encroach on this practice

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This is a truly constructive comment, and I applaud you.

Start with the kids who don't really need it, whose parents are already not anti-gun. Do it on neutral ground, maybe even with a field trip.

But at that point, can't we lose the Berenstein Bears altogether, and have some real talk (responsible grownup style) about what this gun is, why the owner owns it, and how to handle it safely? I think the kids would appreciate that.

Oh wait... I think I might have just described the firearm safety lecture I got in elementary school in the '80s. Or maybe that was civics? Couldn't have been Boy Scouts, I didn't go.

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I agree with you, and yet, still think that it's important to shove it in people's faces in public spaces, a'la DQSH. Like, you make a good point regarding the backup plan, but the *point*, to some extent, is to *try* to get them to ban it. The reaction is the point, and the more hyperventilating and egregious the better.

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May 10, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

Related: I've often thought of the similarity between sex ed and gun ed. How if you were to go to a school board and propose a gun education course, the very same people who support sex ed and ridicule the prudes will turn right around and use the exact same prude arguments against gun education. The counter arguments are identical as well.

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Could it be that Eros and Thanatos were in cahoots this whole time?! What a plot twist.

Listen kids. Go ahead, make love and/or war, just don't fuck up and/or get killed. Any questions?

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May 10, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

I cannot believe you said "AR-15 battle rifle".

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author

SWEET NORMALIZATION

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May 10, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

Wouldn't "Assault Weapon Story Hour" be even more triggering, and therefore effective at generating clicks and a stronger feedback? You'd purposefully want to pick the most controversial name you could.

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author

Yes, I like this better actually.

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May 10, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

Just curious... what kind of a rifle is an AR-15 in your vocabulary?

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May 10, 2023·edited May 10, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

These terms are not absolute, but they are mostly down to the cartridge used. "Battle rifles" such as the Mauser and the M1 Garand generally chamber powerful .30ish caliber rounds, which is why it is technically incorrect to refer to the garden variety AR-15 as a "battle rifle." Shame on you, BJ.

The AR-15 is an assault rifle, because it chambers an assault rifle cartridge. There are other assault rifle properties the pedants like to point to, such as detachable magazine, select-fire, etc, but if you are trying to categorize these things the cartridge is the simplest way to go: 5.56mm AR-15: assault rifle; 7.62mm AR-10: battle rifle.

The big idea behind the assault rifle concept (first actualized by the Germans, natch) is you provide the soldier with more firepower in the form of a smaller, lighter rifle with a smaller, lighter cartridge, with a shorter effective range, albeit the range where most infantry engagements take place (the effective range of the M1 was 1,000 yards; almost no infantry ever actually engage at that range with small arms; the effective assault rifle range is half that or less). Once you have a weapon system that does that, whether or not it features a detachable magazine or select-fire is just something the nerds can argue about.

In my book, even the SKS is an assault rifle, even though it has a fixed magazine, because it shares its 7.62x39mm cartridge with the AK-47. That, I admit, is a controversial opinion, but the SKS isn't a battle rifle and it sure as hell isn't a "Modern Sporting Rifle."

"Modern Sporting Rifle" is a disgusting euphemism promulgated by frightened gun industry Fudds who seem to be happy to allow their political opponents to set the rhetorical rules for them. The term was invented because anti-gun forces demonized "assault rifle," and the Fudds went along with it.

Even the Fudds agree an M16 is an assault rifle. The difference between an M16 and a commercial AR-15 is one part and two holes. For my money, that makes the AR-15 an assault rifle too. I have a safe full of them (and others such as the FN SCAR 16s, AK-47s and SKSes). If I thought I had a "Modern Sporting Rifle," I'd take it out back and burn it.

For some reason, plenty of gun people get bent out of shape over the term assault rifle because, I guess, they worry Anderson Cooper or Dianne Feinstein might say mean things about them.

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Eh, I call them all machine guns. Normal people get it; egregore-puppets get pissed on both sides. And we should be pissing them off, because you can't argue with them.

And I know it's blatantly inaccurate, that's the point.

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I approve of this psot.

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This. Also, I swear, we really are all just a bunch of fucking Aspies going "BUT ACKSHULLY!" aren't we?

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guilty

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I mean, same, but still, fuck... Self-awareness, people!

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As in a colt AR-15 firing 5.56 NATO? It's a Modern Sporting Rifle. It's not a battle rifle because the caliber is too small. It's not an Assault Rifle because it doesn't have selective fire. It's not an assault weapon because that's a stupid term.

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I care not for these semantics. I'm happy to admit the AR-15 is designed to kill people. Most guns are. The time of quibbling over this sort of terminology is done. We already won in 2020, both sides just need to check the scoreboard.

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You should. So much in our society today is happening because of semantics and calling things what they aren’t. FACT: the AR-15 is not an assault rifle or a “battle rifle.”

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It really doesn't matter, because of the euphemism treadmill. Anything we call that rifle will come to be bad, because the other narrative hates that rifle. Any new term will be used as an epithet until we choose another (rinse and repeat).

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But the people who ought to be favorable to the idea are repulsed by the appearance that you don't care to get it right.

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May 14, 2023·edited May 14, 2023

To a certain extent, I think the semantics do matter. After all, we have to communicate in words to communicate ideas and, if the words lose definition, then so do the ideas. In this specific case: Battle rifle, assault rifle, assault weapon, it may or may not matter to some readers but, to others, it is as significant as the differences between car, truck and train. Indeed, those objects have a lot in common but, the distinctions between them are also crucial to understanding.

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Fundamentally, the battle over whether to call an AR-15 a "modern sporting rifle" or an "assault weapon" is just a game of semantics for the smooth brains. Part of the point of HWFO, as it pertains not only to guns but other topics, is to skip that stuff entirely.

The truth about the AR-15 is that it's probably the best tool to win a gunfight against other armed opponents available for civilian purchase. It's absolutely deadly. But who cares. The math is pro gun, just skip the semantic fuckery and win with math. I think most of the progun people who get hung up on the semantic battle don't realize they've already won the math battle.

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Oh, it's about caliber? Fair enough. But if 5.56 is good enough to (e.g.) send to Ukraine... I guess we can call that sort of conflict "Modern Sporting".

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No, we still categorize it as an intermediate cartridge.

Would you call a tank cannon a "battle rifle" on account of it being rifled and used in battle?

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It's a distinction that just doesn't matter outside your in-group.

I know people who shoot .50 for "sport". I know people who were killed on the street with a .22.

In a fight, I think I'd rather have that Colt and several cans of ammo than what you might consider a proper battle rifle with an empty mag. It was definitely designed to shoot at people.

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How do you feel about loading the Colt with clip magazines?

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I mean, I might do so **now**... :D

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May 10, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

Great idea...

Except it feeds the egregores.

I feel an essential rule at this point should be: DON'T FEED THE EGREGORE

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I agree, but I'm not sure that's an option any longer, any more than "Just don't work enough to need to pay income tax, to feed Leviathan" is.

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That falls under what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

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Ah ha! DQSH et al is trends-ganderism. I somehow never quite made the connection, but that makes a lot of sense. Thanks!

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<3 <3 <3

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This seems so alien. I had a toy M-16 when I was a kid.

----

My inclination would be to put an end to this story time nonsense. Host a few Joe Camel Storytimes for the benefit of kids who identify as cool. Dialog will commence...

(Smoking is more reversible than puberty blockers.)

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May 10, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

Could also be a shooter in a Creedmoor Hardback reading while seated on a range cart/shooting stool with their CMP rifle, or 3 Gun shooter in their range kit. Nothing against Hawaiian shirts, though.

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May 10, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

Love it.

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Not sure I'd really say Drag queens normalize trans. It's more a caricature of feminine behaviour. It's a better framing for their side than most I've seen though. It's about as extraneous a thing as an AR would be at a story hour, so it probably would end up being a pretty good analogue.

The weird lumping of disparate behaviours that happens with LGBTQ+ just confuses everyone. How it holds together as a coalition is beyond me.

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I think it's mainly that it's a coalition of very neurotic progressives. The 'grooming' that the Reds worry about isn't grooming them into transsexuals. It's grooming them into miniature progressive foot soliders.

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That probably nails the core of it. It's classic red tribe vs blue tribe.

LGBTQ+ causes are very frequently at odds with each other. The current trans fascination is apparently pushing the LG and B towards extinction. The great irony is that it reinforces gender norms rather than breaking them down.

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author

Well that's the fundamental schism in the TERF war. It's left eating their own.

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It's all fake. There are so few of these people in real life that they can be given outsized attention and spin by media operators and nobody can question it. So, we do get Gays Against Groomers, etc. But nobody notices.

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A funny idea in the abstract, but it wouldn't work. The progressive left doesn't really respond to shaming (they don't feel shame) or accusations of hypocrisy (they don't care, plus they control the media channels so there's no one to call them out.) The left would scream about white supremacy and domestic terrorism, the media would happily amplify the screeching, and the politicians would line up to denounce those crazy gun nuts.

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Yeah. The whole idea is built on a demonstrably false symmetry: in reality, one side owns the DQs, the media spin, and the library to boot. What are the right-side equivalents?

Made for a cute fantasy table, though.

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author

I'm pretty sure the Reds own the libraries in Oklahoma.

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May 10, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

I find it hard to imagine, but I'm not there, so I couldn't say. Every Red county I've ever lived in had a pocket of Strong Blues holding down the social services sector of the local government.

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May 10, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

I think the right side equivalent would be fun days at shooting ranges. I suspect that these could be quite powerful with the right marketing.

Hmmm...Drag Queen Shooting Hour? Show up in drag, get a free 1-hour range pass with every gun rental?

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So... in Israel, you'll find a bored teenager in uniform holding an automatic weapon on every other street corner, in certain neighborhoods or at certain times.

I haven't been to Switzerland, but I'm told every family has a well stocked gun closet, and sends somebody to show up to regular drills.

Compulsory military service does a lot to normalize firearms.

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Not a great example. Israel's gun laws for private citizens are heinous - just short of an outright ban, if memory serves. Switzerland isn't as good as they once were, either.

Difference between a gun culture and a police state culture, probably.

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I didn't bring up Africa, but sure could have.

Mere "normalization of modern infantry weapons" without any side conditions probably isn't quite what we're really after, is it?

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I mean, I look amazing in the right dress, and I'm a badass shot.

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Go on...

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> The progressive left doesn't really respond to shaming (they don't feel shame) or accusations of hypocrisy (they don't care, plus they control the media channels so there's no one to call them out.)

Which is why they will eventually need to all be run through a woodchipper. Still breathing or not.

But it's nice to speculate about less appalling solutions.

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Funny. Though I don't think the media reaction as you lay it out would actually put anyone into a bind. If anything has been true over the last 5 or so years it is that principles and hypocrisy aren't words that mean anything to the media any longer.

So the fact the same points and counterpoints could apply to either side of this debate with people changing hats doesn't matter. Nothing more than "they're different" is necessary.

Obviously this is about values. What should schools and public libraries be responsible for communicating to the nation's children?

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Are you reading my mind? I've been trying for months to explain to any progressives that will listen why cultural conservatives are so bothered by DQSH by asking them "how would you feel if a guy in camo with an AR-15 wanted to read Dr. Suess to your kids at the library?"

Unfortunately, it won't work. As somebody already quite succinctly pointed out, you can't dismantle the master's house with the master's tools. More specifically, looking at your hilarious infographic, the second anybody says "there's nothing wrong with guns, why do you have a problem with this", the mainstream media will dismiss them as insane, dangerous radicals. The sentence "there's nothing wrong with guns" makes absolutely zero sense to somebody who didn't grow up shooting them.

I personally don't think there's anything wrong with either drag queens or guns. I'm a man without a country.

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I have no significant objection to drag queens generally. I have an issue with drag queen story hour specifically.

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There's one problem with the idea of AR-15 story hour: one has to remember one is dealing with Leninists, who have no trouble at all supporting and defending DQSH while simultaneously condemning and opposing ARSH, sneering all the while at one's bourgeois morality.

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I love the idea of AR-15 Story Hour. But honestly, it should probably be Machine Gun Story Hour. The acronym MGSH is a bit better than AR15SH, IMO.

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