On Friday, Trump gave another one of his rambling campaign speeches to a crowd of delusional NRA members that came to celebrate their hatred of gun control and gun free zones in a gun free zone with total and absolute gun control. During the almost hour long ode to his ego, ...read more
The Banter Long Read: This is not going to be a popular message but it's a necessary one: The election of Donald Trump has only delayed the inevitable rise of widespread domestic terrorism in America. These terrorists will not be self-radicalized Muslims or Black Lives Matter ...read more
Saturday's nationwide protest against gun violence and the NRA's continued promotion of a toxic gun culture is the next step in a battle that the NRA is slowly losing. Instead of the usual futile malaise that settles over the country after every gun massacre, the March For Our ...read more
Dear Mr. and Mrs. (parents of victim): It is with great sorrow that I acknowledge the loss of your (son/daughter), (name of victim), in the recent shooting at (name of school) in which _____ children tragically lost their lives. Though your (son/daughter) might not have known it ...read more
(Satire Warning!) Anytown, USA On the surface John Everyman is just another quiet, but quirky neighbor. The 57 year old caucasian loves to sing in his church choir, listens to “non-offensive music” and gets excited about his Canasta and Bridge night. While Mr. Everyman is ...read more
As the death toll in Las Vegas rises in the wake of a massacre that's killed 58 people and wounded hundreds more, it's impossible not to consider the reasons why these bloody events keep happening in America. There are countless factors at play here, obviously. Some of them are ...read more
Every year, at least one hundred children are accidentally killed by guns and hundreds more injured. Most of these deaths and injuries occur when they find and play with an unsecured gun, shooting themselves or another child. These are senseless and easily avoided tragedies. ...read more
As much as I'd like for it to happen, repealing the Second Amendment will never be a thing. Not in my lifetime, not in your lifetime. Likely never. A million Orlandos and a million Sandy Hooks can occur, and gun fetishists can rest assured knowing the amendment will remain ...read more
It is, without a doubt, maybe the best political troll job in recent memory, a brilliant piece of satire that does what all good satire and only good satire can do: hold a mirror up to arrogance, absurdity and foolishness while being nearly impossible to defend against. It's a ...read more
Despite what you might've read, I still dig Bernie Sanders and my vote in the California primary is still very much up for grabs. As I noted in my open letter to the Vermont senator, I opened up about the personal hell I endured during the Great Recession, and there's a not ...read more
An official in the Michigan Republican Party has accidentally killed herself when the gun in her bra that was pointed right at her face discharged and shot her right in said face. While you might find it easy to make jokes -- because it's so incredibly easy to make jokes -- I ...read more
Patrick Perion is a child abuse investigator in Illinois. This week, two young girls lives were irrevocably changed because of guns. The one that everyone has been discussing involves the accidental killing of a firearms instructor by a 9 year-old girl in Arizona. The other, ...read more
This won't be about what the Isla Vista rampage may tell us about the need for better and smarter gun safety measures. This won't be a diatribe demanding "gun control" or gun eradication or anything of that sort in the wake of last Friday's attack. There's a conversation to be ...read more
Whenever there's a demonstrably horrifying event like 9/11 or Tucson or Sandy Hook, a debate always begins in earnest over who or what we should blame and what needs to happen next. And one of the central speed-bumps on the road to further gun control legislation is the fact ...read more
Early this morning, a Fed-Ex employee armed with a shotgun opened fire at the Fed-Ex processing facility in Kennesaw, Georgia. Six people were wounded, two critically, before the gunman finally killed himself. Witnesses to the shooting say the guy with the gun was dressed in the ...read more
There are an estimated 270 million guns in America. That's a staggering and somewhat unsettling statistic, but by virtue of those numbers it stands to reason that not everyone who owns a gun in this country is a fetishistic, hyper-aggressive paranoiac convinced it's only a ...read more
(Photo: Tampa shooting suspect Curtis Reeves. CNN.) As gun violence increases and pro-gun forces achieve new legislation, the gun control movement in the United States is rapidly unraveling. In the year since Sandy Hook, when you'd think there'd be the political and popular ...read more
A right-wing extremist named Elwyn Nels Fossedal was arrested yesterday after he publicly announced his compulsion to assassinate President Obama. While standing in line at the post office last month, Fossedal reportedly declared, "If President Obama was here I would shoot him ...read more
Fourth time's the charm, I guess. After shooting and killing an unarmed teenager, being accused of getting into an armed confrontation with his ex-wife, and apparently leaving a bullet-riddled target in the ex's house as a not-so-subtle warning, George Zimmerman finally met a ...read more
Picking up where I left off yesterday, the existence of the Second Amendment offers a patina of nobility, entitlement and providential sacrosanctity to psychotic behavior. The Second Amendment enables the gun culture and legitimizes an otherwise lunatic fringe lobbyist outfit, ...read more
I've brought this up once before here but it's worth repeating right now. Several years back, I got into a minor online battle with a gun rights group called the Virginia Citizens Defense League after it decided to hold a pro-gun rally within driving distance of the Virginia ...read more
Yesterday in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room in the West Wing, named for the press secretary who was near-fatally shot in the head during an assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, President Obama boldly announced that Vice President Biden would be heading a task force to ...read more
