WHAT

I think you made a mistake with your link.

Reply

I really thought I was going crazy because this links to my hometown’s political shenanigans. “Am I in Kentucky now?”

Reply

This link takes me to Bill No. 40, Expenditure Control Act (Amended).
http://www.gov.ns.ca/legislature/legc/bills/57th_1st/1st_read/b040.htm
So I googled, and here are a few other links:
http://www.reporterherald.com/news_story.asp?ID=23467
http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?S=10473040
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20090603/ZONE08/90603050/

Reply

I’m actually curious to know if the link to the story about the Kentucky pastor got pasted into some document about expenditure controls in Nova Scotia now.

Reply

I seem to remember some sort of uproar over “clinging to guns and religion” being an inappropriate comment last year… but I must be mistaken. The little grey cells, they sometimes play tricks.

— Steve

Reply

MY first thought was “Last scene of The Killer“.

I am a bad person.

Reply

‘ “We’re just going to celebrate the upcoming theme of the birth of our nation,” said pastor Ken Pagano. “And we’re not ashamed to say that there was a strong belief in God and firearms — without that this country wouldn’t be here.” ‘

God, to give you an excuse to enslave others. Firearms, to give you the power to do so.

Reply

And we’re not ashamed to say that there was a strong belief in God and firearms…

I see the 2nd Amendment trumps the 2nd Commandment. Good to know.

Reply

Yes, Kentucky is big on firearms. Well, the rural parts of Kentucky, anyways. Lots of NRA folks here. Valley Station is a part of Louisville, which makes it a little odd, but let’s just say that is not the most…liberal part of town.

Some years back, my pastor had a “blessing of the toys” just after Christmas. I always thought it was a little odd. After this story, though, I imagined a “blessing of the guns”…farcical, at best.

For local coverage and comments, check out

and

Reply

I don’t really understand MGK’s surprise here. So what? I don’t see the particular connection between God and guns, but if this is the way this man is connecting his congregation together and drawing closer the bonds of the community, then more power to him.

Considering the shootings which draw the public attention seem to always be someone bringing guns to a location where no one else has guns, I guess I’m just not concerned about this event.

And not for nothing, DC has one of the most restrictive set of gun laws in the US. Vermont has next to no state laws. The mortality rate per 100,000 is 31.2 and 9.6, respectively. That’s a bit of cherry picking, but Vermont’s mortality rate is less than California, which is a state that encompasses a variety of communities and socio-economic groups. New York rivals D.C. for strictest laws, and its mortality rate is 5.1, comparable to Connecticut which is considerably more liberal in its gun laws and is a ‘shall issue’ state.

All of this is merely to say that gun laws, restrictive or permissive, have less effect on the mortality rates than culture and community. So when you say that Tennessee allows guns everywhere, it occurs to me that that isn’t saying anything about whether the state is more or less dangerous than any other. As mentioned above, DC doesn’t allow guns anywhere, yet I’m much more likely to be killed in the district than wandering around a Tennessee state park.

Reply

Robin: Blessings of the guns have tangible effects, though.

They improve their damage rating against the undead, for one thing, because they count as Holy Weapons.
I also think they improve the To Hit rating.

Reply

Sean: It’s embracing violence and xenophobia–the right to shoot people who are “threatening.” The NRA has for years drawn false connections between gun ownership and crime reduction as a part of a larger wingnut fantasy about self-defense and resisting the goddamn gummint or somesuch. Combining religion with violence has never historically worked out very well.

Reply

“but surely one of them was a distrust of a far reaching and powerful central government, unchecked by the will of the electorate.”

Yes, in a age where it was the only major centralized institution of power (see Chomsky on Adam Smith, or his essay or seminar in youtube “Government in the Future”). They weren’t against it only because someone stamped the word “government” on it, but for a series of reasons that are just as valid for “private” (meaning, unaccountable states that have greater set of factors that affect the public – like the case of emperors and pirates, the most powerful one allows only the smaller one to be called “pirate”, or “state”) tyrannies (the average joe receives more coercion from his micro-iteration of soft stalinism on matters of his job, rent etc in a week than he does from the gummint in a year – which is only there to make sure the bigger states are protected, like John Dewey said, “government is the shadow of big business projected across society”).

But it’s of no surprise that it is the only factor (or cage) of that complex equation to be allowed to be demonized by current clergy, since it’s the cage that proved itself to be most accountable and of most response (even if patheticaly miniscule) to vulnerable and labor sectors of the society.

“If your problem is with white, Christian gun owners shooting brown or black people (as seems to be the undertone of your post by citing xenophobia), I’d only point you to gun crime statistics that are pretty clear on who is shooting whom.”

Oy…

Reply

” I’d only point you to gun crime statistics that are pretty clear on who is shooting whom.”

Oy…”

Is there something wrong with recognizing that urban minorities are far more impacted by gun crime than white rural communities? It seems like looking at a problem realistically is the first way to address is. Ignoring real social issues because they touch on race (though more accurately socio-economics, but the two are tied together pretty closely in this country) seems like intentionally putting one’s eyes out because one doesn’t like the view.

…or maybe I misused ‘whom’ again. I do that sometimes. Sorry.

Reply

Terribly sorry, Sean. Missinterpreted that bit entirely (thank God).

>>>”Second Amendment doesn’t say anything about ammunition, apparently.”

You just created the nightmare loophole that those folks were dreading someone would do. Either that or the Chris Rock $1000-a-bullet strategy.

Reply

The 2nd Amendment guarantees the right to bear arms. In the 18th century, that meant to perform military service, and since it’s part of a sentence about state militias, I think that stands.

Reply