Gun nuts
by digby
Mother Jones reports on the lovely patriots who think the 2nd Amendment trumps the 1st:
AS JENNIFER LONGDON STEERED her wheelchair through the Indianapolis airport on April 25, she thought the roughest part of her trip was over. Earlier that day she'd participated in an emotional press conference with the new group Everytown for Gun Safety, against the backdrop of the National Rifle Association's annual meeting. A mom, gun owner, and Second Amendment supporter, Longdon was paralyzed in 2004 after being shot in her car by unknown assailants, and has since been a vocal advocate for comprehensive background checks and other gun reforms.
As Longdon sat waiting for her flight, a screen in the concourse showed footage of the press conference. A tall, thin man standing nearby stared at Longdon, then back at the screen. Then he walked up to Longdon and spat in her face. No one else blinked.
Longdon was shocked and embarrassed, she told me, but she didn't falter. "Wow, aren't you a big man," she said as he turned and walked away. Instead of calling for security, she wheeled herself to a restroom to clean herself off. She was tired—she lives with constant physical pain—and didn’t want to miss her flight.
"Should I have done something more? Quite honestly, in the scheme of things it was a little man and a little moment," she said. "He felt to me like a coward and a bully."
What happened to Longdon in Indianapolis is part of a disturbing pattern. Ever since the Sandy Hook massacre, a small but vocal faction of the gun rights movement has been targeting women who speak up on the issue—whether to propose tighter regulations, educate about the dangers to children, or simply to sell guns with innovative security features. The vicious and often sexually degrading attacks have evolved far beyond online trolling, culminating in severe bullying, harassment, invasion of privacy, and physical aggression. Though vitriol flows from both sides in the gun debate, these menacing tactics have begun to alarm even some entrenched pro-gun conservatives.
Imagine that. It's actually bad enough that some of the gun-proliferation activists are alarmed? (Yet the near daily murderous rampages against innocent civilians and little children isn't a problem? I just just don't understand these people....)
When I wrote recently about the fact that Open Carry demonstrators are bullying people into silence, I got some doozy responses. This twitter barrage was especially ... vivid:
I couldn't help but think of that little exchange when I read about this new NRA "outreach" to African American young people. I'm fairly sure that most people, young, old, black or white, find that ad campaign to be laughably absurd. ButI certainly hope that any young African American male understands the ramifications of taking these folks up on that invitation. These gun proliferation activists tend to be hostile to young black men who are just walking around eating skittles or playing music too loudly. If anything, this campaign seems designed to give them a legal reason to "stand their ground."
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