Civil Discourse Now

Where the far left and far right overlap for fun and enlightenment

All Blog Posts Tagged 'gun' (12)

Another gun suicide? What to do with "thoughts & prayers"...

Content Warning 1: This story contains references to suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide and needs support now, call or text 988 or chat with the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988lifeline.org. 1/11

The “unsinkable” HMS Titanic sank in April, 1912. Dave MacDonald lost control as he exited Turn 4 on the second lap of the 1964 Indy 500. Eddie Sachs hit him. Both men died. Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in the sky shortly after lift-off in January,…

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Added by Mark Small on November 8, 2025 at 7:50am — No Comments

PSA from the FBI, gun culture & tonight "smalltalk" returns on "Mouthwash"!

Elementary & secondary education today is different from our experience. Kids know a lot about tech & probably chuckle as someone (like me) tries to share a video (like the public service ad (PSA) I hope you see. Kids’ knowledge of tech is cool. Kids are familiar w/PSA’s topic. 1/6

What isn’t cool: kids have to know ways to survive mass shootings. Congrats go to Guy Relford, host of “The Gun Guy” on Indy station WIBC, who advocates gun culture & a view of the 2nd Amendment…

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Added by Mark Small on May 9, 2023 at 2:59pm — No Comments

The math of gun violence is one-sided

It’s near the start of a speech barely five minutes long. In 8th grade it seemed every night our “regular programming” was interrupted by a “Special Report” or “Bulletin.” Tonight I made sure the line was correct & tweeted, then watched all of Robert Kennedy’s speech in Indy. 1/5

In a park around 22nd & Central, he told a crowd that Martin Luther King had been shot & killed. The tweet to which I’d replied (“The mathematician?”) struck me. People who say “guns made this…

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Added by Mark Small on May 4, 2023 at 8:15pm — No Comments

Sorry but I have to give a shout-out to those who foster gun violence!

I congratulate Guy Relford, host of “The Gun Guy” (spiffy play on words) on WIBC, where he advocates a culture of concealed-carry & a 2nd Amendment the 1st Congress never intended. For every mass shooting in the U.S., Mr Relford should feel good. 5 more are dead in Texas. 1/5

Laughs & chuckles abound on his show & in ads for gun shows, like the pooka (seven-foot-tall imaginary rabbit) from the movie “Harvey” getting shot & a one-liner about the Brady Bill (named for…

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Added by Mark Small on April 30, 2023 at 8:04pm — No Comments

Gun culture is based on toxic fiction & we need to deny it

Gun culture is based on toxic fiction. Law men rarely faced down bad guys and the one with the quicker draw won “almost never happened.” John Mack Faragher, Howard R. Lamar Prof of History & American Studies, Yale, 7/21/15. Law men had courts, warrants and deputies. 1/5



Also towns like Tombstone and Dodge City banned guns & even “open carry” because guns kill people. Writers of “dime novels,” popular in the late 1800s, ignored reality & sold stories where guns ultimately… Continue

Added by Mark Small on June 13, 2022 at 8:07pm — No Comments

Poll watchers? Horse Thief Detective Association was muscle for the KKK

Guns, poll watchers, KKK & the Horse Thief Detective Association (vigilantes) were facts. Prior to May 1925 primary elections the former head of the KKK, D.C. Stephenson, was arrested & later convicted of Murder. The Indls PD Chief issued orders “to keep members of the 1/4

Horse Thief Detective Association far away from all public polling places. The association, of course, had once been an integral part of Stephenson’s organization - the ‘enforcement’ arm of the Klan. On…

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Added by Mark Small on June 2, 2022 at 2:44pm — 1 Comment

Another grade school mass shooting is obscene

Guns: How many kids are dead? Guns: Are we really more safe like NRA always said? Guns: Is your home any more secure? Guns: Are you sure your kid will come home from school alive? Guns: are 40K dead each year enough? Guns: they were banned in the Old West. 1/2

Mass shootings - plural - at grade schools are the USA. We need gun control. I’m Mark Small: pro-choice, pro environment, pro-civil rts & anti-gun GOP nominee (I won the primary) for Indiana House District 86. I approve of…

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Added by Mark Small on May 24, 2022 at 4:32pm — No Comments

Guns are not amulets: Tuesday at 7 pm

An amulet is “an object superstitiously worn to ward off evil; a protective charm.” The American College Dictionary, 1962 ed. A handgun holds one or more “rounds,” but no magic. A person has to (1) have opportunity and (2) know how to use that gun, for the gun to work. 1/7

Opportunity: People buy guns for defense of their home. Guns do not emit force fields to ward off bad guys. People assume crime rates drop when ‘good guys’ are armed. (See Wenner-Moyer, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN,…

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Added by Mark Small on December 27, 2021 at 4:24pm — No Comments

Polka, the Roman Catholic Church, local politics and guns.

   When Hoosier (by relocation, not birth) Richard Gatling developed the Gatling gun, the first rapid-fire weapon for combat, it is said he thought his invention would bring an end to war. He could not believe people would wage war in the face of such an awesome weapon. Gatling had no appreciation for human folly.

   Gun violence has been in the national and local news. People were mowed down in D.C. and in Chicago. Whether the weapon du jour, the AR 15, was used by the gunman, it…

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Added by Mark Small on September 21, 2013 at 6:00am — No Comments

New York newspaper's printing of names and addresses of gun permit holders; irresponsible, but protected by the First Amendment.

   The Westchester Journal and News, a newspaper in New York, this week printed the names and addresses of gun permits holders in the county in which it is located and a neighboring county. This was an irresponsible act protected by the First Amendment that was meant purely for the attention it received.

   1) If the intent was to alert area residents of the proximity, to a reader’s home or business, of people who own guns—excuse me, but Wiiliams Tire Foundation (WTF)!? The…

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Added by Mark Small on December 29, 2012 at 6:50am — No Comments

David Gregory lets NRA Prez off the hook on "Meet the Press."

   David Gregory hosts "Meet the Press," the Sunday news show that has been aired on NBC for 65 years. On December 23, Wayne LaPierre, head of the NRA, appeared on the show. LaPierre’s appearance, ostensibly, was to defend the NRA’s proposal—as its "contribution" to the problems highlighted by the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut on December 14.

   To Gregory’s credit, he had come prepared with props. To illustrate his questions about whether legislation to ban…

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Added by Mark Small on December 24, 2012 at 7:20am — No Comments

Open invite: Gun advocates should engage in civil discourse at gun & knife show

  In the next few days I will post blogs about why we should eliminate private ownership of firearms. Gun advocates have a gun & knife show in mid-January If some of you advocates wish to advocate, let's discuss, in civil fashion, this topic. I shall be armed with my intellect. Many of you are intelligent and capable of advancing your cause---even though I musy say you are wrong. It is time for rational discusson about this very important matter. If all drugs were legalized, we would…

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Added by Mark Small on November 18, 2011 at 9:39pm — No Comments

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