"Phony-tough and crazy-brave"
First written many years ago by Stewart Alsop in describing the Watergate burglars, this phrase of course is best-known for its use in the Kubrick film Full Metal Jacket. Alsop of course was describing all the President's Men's swagger and their (at the time) unbelievable 'loyalty' to the re-election of the President - Nixon of course.
We now have an entire nation of tough guys and swaggering assholes, who make pronouncements from behind their munitions, reverentially stored in hopefully-locked cabinets in their homes. Clinging to their guns, as a great man once said, they are obsessional hobbyists who, instead of building little ships in bottles or collecting stamps from countries with funny-sounding names, vacation at camps where they have the opportunity to discharge thousands of rounds of .50 caliber ammunition at junked autos, and the like. And good for them to have fun - as an American it is a Constitutional right to have fun and we know this because there are the words "pursuit of happiness" and there's nothing that makes these folk happier than a warm gun, to paraphrase another great man. Who was shot dead by a handgun...but that's not important today. And yes, of course, Mr. Lennon was not referring to a 'gun' literally, he may have been referring to a syringe and needle...or maybe not.
Speaking of Mr. Lennon, Mr Marx comes to mind: not Karl, but Groucho, who could not have possibly had the creativity to write the inane and dangerous speech of that tinhorn Albert Speer, the Nazi armaments minister. (Don't much like Nazi comparisons? Sorry about that...(not really)). In all the years in which I have watched this RW machine excuse its atrocities of public policy, its unnecessary wars, its general insanity, I have never seen anything as blatant as this and only Pat Buchanan's' 1992 Convention speech comes close in its obvious fascist intent. Of course the irony is that just a few weeks ago we were hearing about the virtually criminal manner in which the teachers and their unions were destroying the fabric of America, and now this lowlife and his minions wish to arm them to the teeth. The depth of their hatred and contempt is something about which we should all be afraid.
So rather than cower, I say that we should take up the charge to de-fang and reduce this movement to the thinness which it deserves. I call for unconditional surrender of those who would allow assault weapons to be held by private individuals in this country by making their possession illegal in all states and territories. Cold, dead hands, indeed.