notes on Rich Johnston, and drawings of Mohammed

[hradzka]

This just in: Rich Johnston is a coward.

What's more, he's a weaselly and despicable one.

If you don't know who he is, Johnston runs Bleeding Cool, which is the successor website (and current host for) his long-running comics news and gossip column, "Lying in the Gutters." One of his recent posts mentioned the attempted murder of Danish

Comments

[hradzka]

Actually, the controversy wasn't really ignited until several Danish imams went on a tour of the Middle East with a compilation of the cartoons, which they had thoughtfully augmented with their own contributions: a photoshop of a dog humping a praying Muslim, a cartoon of Mohammed as a demon and pedophile, and a photograph that they claimed was a man mocking Mohammed by cosplaying the prophet in pig nose and ears but was really of a participant in a French pig-calling competition.

Radical fundemantalism, from Islam to teabagger, indicates how powerful such things are as they can only win by silencing doubt with violence and mindless shouting.

I can understand folks opposed to the Tea Party crowd disagreeing with them, disliking them, even looking down on them -- that's all human nature -- but no matter how you feel about their politics, grouping them with jihadists goes far beyond the pale.

until the dominant voice of gun advocates is not the NRA but people who respect the need to control a killing machines

Well, if you think the NRA needs to put a different face out there, one that looks more like me -- look, I hate to quote a cheesy marketing slogan, but in this case it happens to be true: I am the NRA. Specifically, I'm an NRA life member and an NRA-certified firearms instructor; I teach gun safety and basic marksmanship, and this kind of thing is exactly why I believe in being a visible gun nut. People unfamiliar with guns don't know the NRA does or who its members are, or what we do, or -- for example -- that the hardcore non-compromise gun groups are organizations like Gun Owners of America and Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, who complain about the NRA selling out by (for example) being initially very opposed to the Heller lawsuit, which made gun ownership possible in the District of Columbia.

(Poplawski is an interesting case study for effectiveness of firearms regulation: he bought his guns legally from a federally-licensed dealer, but should not have been able to, as he reportedly had a dishonorable discharge from the military and a former girlfriend had put up a protective order against him, both of which would have prohibited him from owning guns. He lied on his form and the background check missed his disqualifying characteristics. He was also an active white supremacist who believed Jews were running the country which, despite what a lot of my lefty friends believe, makes him very far into "loon" territory, and not the sort of guy in mainstream righty circles. Not that guns are necessarily a lefty/righty issue anyway.)