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you know, fta, you're right. i didnt say anything about "self-defense"--i didnt say anything about the gun as penis extension, as a tool the primary function of which is to allow for the illusion of control over situations to be available to any fuckwit with enough money to get a gun. i didnt talk about that not because i forgot, but because i wasnt really interested in derailing the thread into a litany of more or less sociopathic assertions about the levelling functions of guns, how "democratic" they are. i figured it was bad enough that there were already claims that having a gun means you are politically free. i didnt see the point of opening up another space for arbitrary claims. but it opened anyway, so my job is done.
i didnt talk about it because i live in a city and find nothing good or reassuring about such statements. i find them the rationale for potential shootouts in streets over some petty agression. i find them to be the rationalization for the multiplication of stray bullets. i find them to be the excuse floated up front for the accidental injury or death of people just wandering by or who live nearby. i dont find the idea that people are strapped in a city to do anything good for any sense of security. i see mostly people who are strapped using their mighty guns in a situation of panic. but i am sure that others see manly men dropping and rolling and squeezing off x rounds of precisely aimed lethal force in protection of all and sundry, mowing down Bad Guys vigilante style and ultimately being congratulated for their dodge city heroism the way charles bronson might have been in a movie, maybe even getting to say a cliche or two in the process---"go ahead make my day"----and i am sure that Proper Gun Safety and Handling Training means that you will never panic in an unexpected situation, that you would never make errors that would result in the maiming of someone walking by just because they were walking by. maybe that's the effect of being-strapped as penis extension: you are never afraid of anything, you have Control strapped to your side and are Ready to Whip It Out. but who knows, maybe out there in ruralia, land of the high plains drifters, these sort of problems of population density dont matter so much and it is less a big deal if in a panic you spray a few dozen stray bullets into the desert. maybe there is no panic is ruralia and that's why the manly men who live out there live out there.
maybe chaos is just an urban thing. when i watch television, it looks that way. maybe television is accurate in its portrayal of the world.
or maybe its cities where "pussies" live, to use the sophisticated terminology of one or another of the manly men above, i dont remember which.
ah there we have the REALLY compelling argument: cities are full of "pussies" and manly men live in ruralia.
got it.
now i understand.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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