Merry
Festive.
On one level it’s obvious enough: it’s a big fuck you to everyone who doesn’t want to live in a weaponized social world.
Ok, noted, message received, but going beyond that – it’s a very odd piece of iconography. The massive guns don’t harmonize well with the big cheery grins. What are those people so happy about? They’re apparently at war with someone (or perhaps everyone), and that’s not a situation that generally causes people to sit down wreathed in smiles to get a photo taken.
What are all these guns for? Besides “fuck you”? Rep Thomas Massie is a Rep, i.e. a member of the House of Representatives, for a district in Kentucky. Does that translate to needing all those guns? Are his constituents trying to kill him and his family? (I’m assuming the other people in the photo are his family.) Is that why they have all that firepower?
Or is it the other way around? Has Thomas Massie declared war on the people in his district, or in Kentucky, or in the US?
Many wags are pointing out that he might as well have posed them all with giant dildos instead.
The analogy to posing with giant dildos breaks down when one points out that the only practical use for all those weapons is to kill a lot of people with minimal effort.
They could have posed with dildos and in fetish gear, and all the men could have their dicks hanging out, and it still wouldn’t have made the photograph a fraction as obscene as this one is.
Guns for Baby Jesus? Was there a Kalashnikov in the manger?
I mean … I can sympathize with the sentiment of wanting Santa to bring ammo, ’cause it’s been rather hard to find any for the past year-and-a-half. The picture is bizarre, though. Like … o_O
A RUSSIAN gun in our Lord and Saviour’s manger??! NEVER! AR-15, all the way! USA!!
Though actually, in terms of historical and geographical accuracy, it was most likely an Uzzi.
That Christmas goose is going to be mighty tattered with all that firepower, I wonder, do they just eat around the lead? Maybe they live in a bad neighborhood, with zombies or something. Pfft.
Do you remember when Sarah Palin talked about the “Real America” before Trump wanted to Make it Great Again? This picture is for the Sarah Palins of the world, whose deadly hobby is their marker for genuwine patriotism. These people drive Chevy, Ford, and Dodge Trucks to the grocery story for American Spirit Cigarettes and chaw. And anyone who doesn’t belongs in Denmark or someplace socialist like that.
“Merry Christmas, Motherfucters, we’re comin’ for you!”
Functionally, the picture is signaling. Rep Massie is signaling his constituents that he is not going to take their guns away, and that he is going to protect their 2nd amendment rights. More fundamentally, he is signaling that he is one of them: one of the gun people; one of the people who keep guns and think that owning guns is important.
I don’t know whether they own all those guns or whether they borrowed some as props for the picture. I have to say that I wouldn’t want to live in a household that had 7 guns for 7 people.
I see one hunting rifle; the rest look military-grade.
They are all displaying good trigger discipline; with luck they can get through the photo shoot without an accidental discharge. Massie himself seems lax about where he’s pointing his weapon. Up would be better than aside.
I worry about the one seated in the middle. Hard to tell her age; might be a child. The probably posed her with a carbine to make the composition work: a long gun would look outsized in her hands. But the short barrel can make a gun like that harder to control.
You can’t take away my guns – I have rights!
You can’t make me get vaccinated – I have rights!
You can’t make me wear a mask – I have rights!
You can’t make me carry a fetus to term – oh, yeah right…
Steven: I’m not sure I’d use any of those for hunting, although I know that many do. I often hear several shots closer together than one would expect from a bolt gun. My reaction is always the same: you have no business hunting. If you’re taking more than one shot, then you’re shooting at a moving target on the follow-ups. Which means you missed on the first. Which means you can’t hit a stationary target. You are dangerous to humans and wildlife. So you need to go home and learn to shoot. It makes me rage.
It’s also demonstrated, yet again, what fragile, duplicitous, snowflakes the right are. Not to mention hypocrites. Massie gets criticised, blocks people. Journalist points out that blocking people from Twitter account used by Government official. Reads law. Massie blocks journalist. Another journalist criticises supposed libertarian for imagery. Massie snitches to his boss in obvious attempt to get him into trouble with employer (Reason).
Trump didn’t create the awfulness we’re seeing now, and he’s not even solely responsible for the even greater awfulness to come. He did unlock it and give legitimacy to being full throated awful though.
I wondered if that was Ethan Crumbley’s family.
Good grief, the massive narcissism. It astonishes me that these people grew up in basically the same USA that I did, and think that this sort of display is anything other than insane.
Fortunately, we live in a world with Photoshop. Unfortunately, I do not currently own a Photoshop license.
Well, when I said “pointed out,” what I really meant was that many wags retweeted the photoshop.
I’m not a real expert, and I can’t identify the two guns in the back left. But we seem to have 2 AR clones, a Vietnam era machine gun, an Uzi, and a real or imitation Tommy Gun of WWII style.
None of these have any legitimate civilian use. Someone might collect them as object, but the public brandishing is straight up intimidation.
Never mind that all the aforementioned cars have more parts made outside the US than the Honda and Toyota cars. It’s the name that counts.
But…but…but…that’s what they do in the movies! (Sputtering) Real men shoot moving targets. Hasn’t anyone told you?
In the 90’s I was working on a client system and a Mazda dealership in Wisconsin and they had a poster comparing the %age of parts made in the U.S. on a Mazda (final assembly point for many Mazdas at the time was in Edison, NJ) compared to the average of American-badged cars. The Mazda I drove for personal use was more American than the Ford I drove (final assembly point was in a maquiladora in Mexico) as a company car.
In fact, I had three successive cars that had were Japanase badged (Mazda and Mitsubishi) but built in the US. One person told me “yeah, but the profit is going back to Japan.” I pointed out the profit that was going to an American dealer, and that the labor was being paid to American assembly workers. I didn’t give a rip for which executives, Japanese or American, were getting the final profit.