Look, I'm glad we're having a conversation about the hypocrisy of the legal logic used by America's gun nuts.
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To suggest that there is some intellectual inconsistency between an ideology that says it's OK if George Zimmerman and Kyle Rittenhouse shoot people in the street but a capital crime if Alex Pretti is carrying is to assume that their stated policy is their actual logic. It ain't.
@SeanCasten@mastodon.social FWIW, I’m not interested in calling the NRA out in their hyprocrisy because I think it will make them uncomfortable, let alone change them. I mean, I hope for at least some discomfort, but it’s not the point.
The point is for all the people who hear their stated policy and believe it to go through that discomfort. Most won’t have a problem, but some will, and that’s fewer people to give them money and fuel their lobbying engine. It’s fewer people that see them as an authority or at all respectable.
Pointing out hypocrisy won’t change the hypocrites, but it can show people who haven’t paid attention who the hypocrites are.
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Postscript: Here are two people who brought guns to a protest and are not only still alive, but were subsequently invited to speak at the 2020 RNC. The fact that this protest was in support of George Floyd does not imply a contradiction in the gun nut world view.
Halloween 2020
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Postscript: Here are two people who brought guns to a protest and are not only still alive, but were subsequently invited to speak at the 2020 RNC. The fact that this protest was in support of George Floyd does not imply a contradiction in the gun nut world view.
Here's one more protester that brought a gun to a protest and shot a couple of people and killed one.
In prison? Nope. He's doing great as a right wing media star.
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Postscript: Here are two people who brought guns to a protest and are not only still alive, but were subsequently invited to speak at the 2020 RNC. The fact that this protest was in support of George Floyd does not imply a contradiction in the gun nut world view.
@SeanCasten They didn't bring guns to a protest. They aimed guns *at* a protest.
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Postscript: Here are two people who brought guns to a protest and are not only still alive, but were subsequently invited to speak at the 2020 RNC. The fact that this protest was in support of George Floyd does not imply a contradiction in the gun nut world view.
@SeanCasten I love your commentary, all the time, and would ask that you start adding alt tags. Images with alt tags are just black boxes to screen readers. Something is there, but that’s all the info you get.
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Look, I'm glad we're having a conversation about the hypocrisy of the legal logic used by America's gun nuts. But can we stop pretending this is a new thing? They have never advocated for universal access to firearms. They only want their team to be armed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/01/25/alex-pretti-gun-debate-second-amendment/
@SeanCasten I believe the only core Republican belief is "I want what I want." Any arguments used for what they want are true at that time and discarded later.
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@cjhubbs I wonder if this is more obvious to people outside of the US maybe? Like maybe if I had been raised with this mythic understanding of the US as a level playing field or whatever...
Not sure I'm the right one for a regular outsider's view on what's happening there. Seems to me that the US is now run, ruled and governed by people seeking to re-establish the Confederacy. The majority, if not all, in states like AL where the white supremacists run the show and seemingly most of the south. At the other extreme, say MN, the racist sentiment is still a strong voice, even if a minority.
Expect no logic from White Nationalists; their entire ideology is idiotic
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Look, I'm glad we're having a conversation about the hypocrisy of the legal logic used by America's gun nuts. But can we stop pretending this is a new thing? They have never advocated for universal access to firearms. They only want their team to be armed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/01/25/alex-pretti-gun-debate-second-amendment/
@SeanCasten For those who have not done so read Federalist 29. It was Hamilton's comments on the discussion on the floor as it pertained to the 2A. It is very simple; 'whether to have a standing army or militia', nothing about hearth or home. That training, outfitting & arming of the militia was to be done by the US gov for consistency. Officers were to be supplied by states. To my mind he is talking about a natl.guard, that they must be armed, not for self protection but for all.
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Postscript: Here are two people who brought guns to a protest and are not only still alive, but were subsequently invited to speak at the 2020 RNC. The fact that this protest was in support of George Floyd does not imply a contradiction in the gun nut world view.
@SeanCasten Rep. Casten as you know they don’t need to be consistent in 2A or anything else. There are millions of law abiding liberal gun owners. The “gun nuts” as you call them are the MAGA that DHS is recruiting. I already own firearms and with ICE/DHS/CPB forcibly entering homes without a warrant or probable cause, I am upping my game. People who own firearms are not “gun nuts” - that is a MAGA problem. #selfdefense #liberalgunowners #armyourfriends #2AforAll
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Postscript: Here are two people who brought guns to a protest and are not only still alive, but were subsequently invited to speak at the 2020 RNC. The fact that this protest was in support of George Floyd does not imply a contradiction in the gun nut world view.
Not only "brought guns," but brandished them at protestors. That woman's finger is on the trigger.
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1) to enforce the laws of the US; 2) to defend against foreign invasions and 3) to suppress domestic insurrections. The folks who wrote this had direct, recent experience with Shay's Rebellion, the Revolutionary War and lived in constant fear of slave rebellions. 1, 2 and 3 respectively.
@SeanCasten Rep. Casten everyone in my state is, by law, a member of the militia. Legal precedent says that militia means the National Guard. You don’t like how 2A has been interpreted to mean there is an individual right to own firearms but that is *irrelevant* now. The question is whether the People can exercise those rights for #selfdefense in the face of tyrannical 4A and 1A violations. That is the question that you and other leaders must address.
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But the fear of "domestic insurrectionists" from Denmark Vesey to the Black Panthers is still there. And it's not accidental that the Scalia court ruled in Heller that the first 13 words of 2A are "merely prefatory" and no longer apply.
@SeanCasten you had me jumping on to Wikipedia for Denmark Vesey. Didn't learn THAT in school. Thank you.
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@SeanCasten They didn't bring guns to a protest. They aimed guns *at* a protest.
@maccruiskeen @SeanCasten
Yes, massive distinction. Rittenhouse crossed state lines looking for people to shoot. -
Look, I'm glad we're having a conversation about the hypocrisy of the legal logic used by America's gun nuts. But can we stop pretending this is a new thing? They have never advocated for universal access to firearms. They only want their team to be armed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/01/25/alex-pretti-gun-debate-second-amendment/
@SeanCasten Also, the “anti-tyranny” gun zealots are the same ones jumping to cosplay military with ICE.
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Look, I'm glad we're having a conversation about the hypocrisy of the legal logic used by America's gun nuts. But can we stop pretending this is a new thing? They have never advocated for universal access to firearms. They only want their team to be armed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/01/25/alex-pretti-gun-debate-second-amendment/
Please stop pushing the coup paper
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@SeanCasten Isn't the national guard the well-regulated militia? Cause they were called as much as the "regular" military to fight abroad. Sometimes moreso.
@AlliFlowers @SeanCasten What they are is the organized (as in organized by the state governnent, not as in "orderly") militia, in contrast to the unorganized militia (the citizenry at a minimum). I don't have it on hand but there's a cookbook from about the same time that includes in its lengthy 18th century subtitle the term "well regulated kitchen", as an example of the term definitely not referring to legal specification but to refer to being in good working order.
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@AlliFlowers @SeanCasten What they are is the organized (as in organized by the state governnent, not as in "orderly") militia, in contrast to the unorganized militia (the citizenry at a minimum). I don't have it on hand but there's a cookbook from about the same time that includes in its lengthy 18th century subtitle the term "well regulated kitchen", as an example of the term definitely not referring to legal specification but to refer to being in good working order.
@lepidotos My kitchen is definitely not well-regulated.
@SeanCasten -
@SeanCasten The well regulated militia is the National Guard, the existence of which is supposed to prevent federal tyranny by avoiding the need for a standing federal army to operate on US soil or operate abroad without a Congressional declaration of war for that matter. Since we have a permanent federal army always operating abroad, we’ve violated this principle since at least WWII and thus haven’t restrained the military industrial complex as Eisenhower warned.
https://www.amazon.com/Second-Amendment-Biography-Michael-Waldman/dp/1476747458
@opethminded @SeanCasten No it isn't the NG is the organized (as in organized by the state, not as in orderly) militia. The government wouldn't need to grant itself the right to arm the NG because that's more or less the definition of what a government is, a group with enough legitimacy to hold the monopoly of power. Even if it did, it wouldn't use the phrase "the people" when writing the permission letter to the state governments.
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@lepidotos My kitchen is definitely not well-regulated.
@SeanCasten@AlliFlowers @SeanCasten I'd recommend at least considering these points, even if you end up disagreeing with them: https://bitbang.social/@lepidotos/115963676755030294
Ultimately I'd respect the anti-gun position more if it didn't try to use a false air of legitimacy when there's a perfectly legitimate route for it in advocating for the repeal of the amendment rather than contorting it into a pretzel.
And true, mine isn't great either, but I did get it cleaned a bit recently and that's been nice. -
Postscript: Here are two people who brought guns to a protest and are not only still alive, but were subsequently invited to speak at the 2020 RNC. The fact that this protest was in support of George Floyd does not imply a contradiction in the gun nut world view.
@SeanCasten ICE have brought guns to every protest they've been at.
