Preparing for war

Preparing for war

by digby

Cliff Schecter went to the big NRA meeting in Indianapolis. And what he saw in the exhibition hall kind of freaked him out:
As I entered the room, directly in front of me were T-shirts for sale with assault weapons on them, bearing the likenesses of former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, President Obama and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Two coastal Jews and an African-American from Chicago—what’s known in Alex Jones land as “The Trifecta.” As I moved past the T-shirts, two guys walking past me looked back, and one chuckled. “Bloomberg,” he said, and shook his head.

ilitary-style weaponry of every kind occupied almost every inch of the terrain to my left and right as I began the long trek down each aisle. Not your father’s hunting rifle, for the most part—although there were a few of those here and there—but the kind of arms you use to start a war. Fifty-caliber rifles, which can take down small aircraft. Assault rifles—rebranded “sporting rifles,” in case your sport might be decimating a small village in under a minute. High-capacity magazines of the variety used in so many recent massacres at malls, schools, and universities.

Some weapons were in glass display cases, while others were right out in front to touch at will. At first the constant clicking of of triggers and magazines being secured in place was a bit unsettling. Soon it just blended into the background, What was hard to not notice was the look of glee on so many men’s faces—white men, for the most part, generally of less than athletic appearance—whose communal id had been unleashed. They looked like kids in a candy store, boys with toys, with a type of porn their political ideology can get behind.

And then there was the gear...
It's not about hunting anymore. These people are gearing up for a war.

That kind of freaks me out too.

Read the whole thing.

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