Damn Bloomberg, you and Charlie want to take away our guns because of some fucked up kid in Virginia? Next can we ban cars to prevent drunk driving deaths?
The main reason our founding fathers wanted us to have guns is as a check against the power of our own government. James Madison in the Federalist Papers: the Constitution preserves “The advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation … (where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”
Disarmed people are neither free nor safe - they become the criminals’ prey and the tyrants’ playthings. When the civilians are defenseless and their government goes bad, however, thousands and millions of innocents die.
China: In 1935 the Nationalist government prohibits the private ownership of firearms. The Communists take over in 1949 - they keep the population disarmed. During 38 years of Communist violence and economic ‘experiments’, they wipe out 35 million Chinese - and possibly as many as 100 million. During all this time Red Chinese dictator Mao Tse-Tung controls all the guns.
Russia: The Communists took power in Russia in 1917, and immediately passed laws making it almost impossible for non-party members to own firearms. Then, in 1929 Soviet dictator Josef Stalin decrees that all livestock, produce, and farmland belong to the State. Farmers are ordered to surrender their land and livestock, and to move to government-owned collective farms. First, to terrorize the rest into submission, several million of the most prosperous farmers are sent to forced labor camps or killed outright. These ‘Kulaks’ are demonized by the Communists. Because of ten years of firearms confiscation, farmers can only fight back with farm tools.
Germany: After Hitler disarmed the population by passing the Nuremberg Laws, pre-war Germany was a picture of domestic tranquility – unless you were a Jew.
People always snicker at the idea that little Joe Citizen with his shotgun or semi-automatic rifle can stand up to the might of the U.S. Army. And I say, the Vietnamese did a pretty damn good job of it, and the Iraqis seem to be too.
There’s also the statistical evidence that says gun violence rises when you ban guns. Why? Because criminals don’t get their guns legally anyway. A gun ban takes guns out of the victim’s hands, not the perpetrator’s. You think gangbangers in Bed Stuy buy shotguns at Wal-Mart?
And if none of this persuades you, can I just close by saying guns are fucking sexy.
I joined the herd last week and started using Twitter. Ever since, I’ve been trying to come up with a name for the people who use it. Like a gaggle of geese, or a lamentation of swans. Because that’s just something I do.
There are a lot of people on there, spouting off about one thing or another. Sometimes it’s mundane, sometimes it’s poetic. Mostly though it’s illustrative of the phenomenon that may or may not have a scientific name yet, but has to do with the desire to tell other people about yourself and the relative ease with which this is possible thanks to El Internet. It’s why webloggers talk about their cats, and vloggers videotape their cats.
Charles Hope posted a link to a collection of aphorisms by Werner Erhard the other day, and one of them stuck out at me:
“I know that you know that I love you. What I want you to know is that I know you love me.”
We want to show people how human we are, how much we can love.
Anyway, my first thoughts about what to call Twitter users were along the lines of a “Trivial of Twitterers” or a “Trifling of Twitterers“. But digging a little deeper under the froth of Twitter activity led me to something more like a “Transport of Twitterers” or a “Thrive of Twitterers” or maybe even an “Indemnification of Twitterers“.
I realized that recording and posting a song takes all of 15 minutes, and I also realized that my voice used to sound a lot better when I sang more often. So here’s this: http://standards.bullemhead.com/
Written by Haven Gillespie and Beasley Smith, played by Adam Quirk.
Up in the mornin’, out on the job
Work like the devil for my pay.
But that lucky old sun has nothin’ to do
But roll around heaven all day.
Had a fuss with my woman, an’ I toil for my kids,
An’ I sweat ’til I’m wrinkled and gray,
While that lucky old sun got nothin’ to do
But roll around heaven all day.
Oh, Lord above, don’t you hear me cryin’
Tears are rollin’ down my eyes.
Send in a cloud with a silver linin’,
Take me to paradise.
Show me that river, Take me across,
wash all my troubles away
Like that lucky old sun give me nothing to do
But roll around heaven all day.
Happy St. Patty’s day. Booze and a guitar and a camera produces this sort of thing. My voice goes off-key. My poor guitar, I mis-finger her. She still loves me the next morning though. This song is Yellow Ledbetter.
Our first two auctions (one, two) were legitimate successes.
Then something happened. Either some negative nancy reported us to eBay out of malice, or they just were offended by our obviously sarcastic remark about terrorist blogs on auction two. Either way, they booted us.
So now, we’ve taken matters into our own dirty hands. Learn about it:
Due to a recent incident involving certain by-products of our current political environment, an unnamed online auction site has banned Wreck & Salvage from use of its services. At times like these True Patriots must stand tall. We will not cower to corporate terrorism that attempts to stifle the free enterprise system of the good ol’ USA.
Thus, effective immediately we will host independent auctions through our own site (link)
Show these carpetbaggers, these usurpers of blue-collared red-blooded America, who really greases the gears and stokes the furnaces of Our Homeland.
Our auctions run on the honor system, and our word is 350 maraging steel (in layman’s terms, it’s damned solid).
RULES TO FOLLOW
1. All bids are contracts, reneging on bids will result in a swift kick to the shins.
2. The auction begins after the first bid is placed, and ends on the date noted in the weekly post.
3. This is the honor system.
That’s it. Good luck.
Here are our previous eBay auctions: Weeks One & Two
Formerly known as The PAN (now in stasis), we have now banded together to produce this bi-weekly (Mon & Thurs) show featuring all sorts of video anomalies, such as:
Ornamental Concrete,
America, Your America!,
Video Moroso,
Suppendapo,
Untitled,
and Untitled.
I would like to encourage those who enjoy my or any of our work to support Wreck & Salvage by either bidding on our auction, or spreading the word about us on launch day (t-minus 9 days).
Thank you for your continued patience and willingness to be confused.
Videos, music, images, and words by 