Good article, even mentioned the LGC.

The sign said, “Satan is a Democrat!” It sat outside a small prefabricated building off Highway 441, the main shopping strip that runs through Milledgeville, Georgia. The sign’s marquee lettering was only recently changed from its previous message: “Democrats are the enemies of America!” Another sign next to it, this one screen-printed, advertised a church called The Society for the Ten Commandments. Brett Kavanaugh was about to be confirmed onto the Supreme Court, so the sign stung a little extra. My wife, Katie, and I decided to stop and take photos in front of it to post on Instagram. It was our small way of saying fuck you right back.

This was where we lived now. And signs like this were part of the reason I decided to buy a gun.

I should mention who ― and what ― I am: a 43-year-old, transmasculine, nonbinary, gay-married, atheist Jew; the child of NYC schoolteachers and a grandchild of Holocaust survivors. I am also, yes, a hard-left Democrat. In short, I am Satan incarnate, the enemy, something many of my new neighbors wish didn’t exist.

To be honest, I’d been thinking about buying a gun since the 2016 election. Like most lifelong leftists, I’d always been on the anti side of the gun argument but, I have to admit, I didn’t really the know the first thing about them. With Trump emboldening anti-Semites and white supremacists, and hate crimes on the rise even in liberal bastions like New York, I was more afraid than ever of getting attacked for being genderqueer or gay or nonconforming in whichever way might offend the Trump base. Owning a gun started to seem like a good way to protect myself, my home, and my family. Moving to rural Georgia made self-protection seem all the more urgent.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/queer-gu ... 892f49c3cb

Only shoot it when:

>>Having fun at targets.
>>When you're in fear of your/others life.

>>Never when you're pissed off.
>>Never when impaired.

SR

The article was great. It also is depressing.

eelj wrote: Sun Mar 17, 2019 3:23 pm The article was great. It also is depressing.

Depressing that in this day and time someone, not like majority people in a community, feels the need to buy a gun for protection, because of their differences.

TrueTexan wrote: Sun Mar 17, 2019 3:40 pm

eelj wrote: Sun Mar 17, 2019 3:23 pm The article was great. It also is depressing.

Depressing that in this day and time someone, not like majority people in a community, feels the need to buy a gun for protection, because of their differences.

I see those sorts of signs a lot since 2015. Never before was it so bad. The "enemy of the people" and "fake news media" signs, too. Because it is too risky to fly confederate flags, this is the new flag. Around this neighborhood, political candidate signs have almost disappeared. After 2016, no one wants to be a target. The FFLs will tell you that firearms and ammo sales have not slowed down since the Hillary-fear days. All sides are arming up - just in case. Few want conflict, but few want to be unarmed.

The Liberal Gun Club even sells snowflake targets on its website.

We do? Not that I see. Someone should reach out to HuffPost to get a correction.

K9s wrote: Sun Mar 17, 2019 5:19 pm

TrueTexan wrote: Sun Mar 17, 2019 3:40 pm

eelj wrote: Sun Mar 17, 2019 3:23 pm The article was great. It also is depressing.

Depressing that in this day and time someone, not like majority people in a community, feels the need to buy a gun for protection, because of their differences.

I see those sorts of signs a lot since 2015. Never before was it so bad. The "enemy of the people" and "fake news media" signs, too. Because it is too risky to fly confederate flags, this is the new flag. Around this neighborhood, political candidate signs have almost disappeared. After 2016, no one wants to be a target. The FFLs will tell you that firearms and ammo sales have not slowed down since the Hillary-fear days. All sides are arming up - just in case. Few want conflict, but few want to be unarmed.

This.
Intimidation is the new currency for speaking out. (Actually it's an old one but the Internet changed how it works). Say something he doesn't like, and the PRESIDENT calls you every filthy name he can invent on Twitter and whistles that his brown-shirts (Red Hats) should hunt you and your family down and hurt or kill you..and the traitorous shit-stain gets away with it!
I've been watching for the signs for years, since the Greensboro Massacre of November 3, 1979, when I was living in North Carolina--and the murdering Nazis and KKK were ALL acquitted!
They started accelerating in January 2009 when Barack Obama took office. From the moment Putin's Shit-stain announced he was running for President with a vicious, racist screed, until the day he was "elected", my fear increased, and that day, like the article cited, I realized it was only going to get much, much worse.

If you're LGBTQ, Black, Muslim, Latino, Jewish (like me), or any religion that isn't Christian; if you're Liberal, Democratic, Never-Trump Republican, Green; if you even question ANY action of the Shit-Stain, you may WELL become a target of online attacks, stalking, "doxing", falsified horrible data (Pizzagate), and, worst of all, physical attacks and murder.

And every damned one of those White Supremacist "Christian" monsters is armed and eager to kill all of the above.

So, yeah, I'm armed, too, and for similar reasons.

Well written, just a few of the quotes I took from the article. Her grandmothers question when he told her that he might ask for German citizenship.

Why would you do that?

For an EU passport of course, they could live in any EU country.

Was my embrace of gun ownership simply a manifestation of my own masculinity? I ran this theory by Katie. Her response? “Duh.”

Is self protection male or female? To me it's just self protection.

Yet I get told to “have a blessed day” with surprising frequency. I hear it mostly from cashiers at unsacred places — the hardware store, the supermarket, the gas station — or from complete strangers when I’m asking for directions. Is it even possible for me to be blessed in their eyes? I suppose if I completely renounce my entire identity and convert to Christianity, it might be. But in reality, I’m way too stressed to be blessed.

From some people's mouths it's a fake way of saying, "F--- You!"

Something about this collaboration between two old cis white men on my behalf warmed me, despite my ambivalent relationship to the pronoun "she". I was surprised also by their enthusiasm to help, share resources, and provide me with positive feedback, but this is something I’d come to recognize as the norm in gun culture.

My experience also.

The shooting was serious, but the overall vibe was sweet and relaxed. This group was like the land of misfit toys, and I felt more at home than I had in months. With these people, I wasn’t a weirdo. None of us were. Even though we were handling deadly weapons for two hours, I felt safe.

A different time and a different place.

Freddie Oversteegen was only 14 when she joined the Dutch resistance during World War II, and only a couple of years older when she became one of its armed assassins. Together with her sister—and later, a young woman named Hannie Schaft—the trio lured, ambushed and killed German Nazis and their Dutch collaborators.

Freddie and her sister Truus, who was two years older, grew up in the city of Haarlem with a single, working-class mother. Their mother considered herself a communist and taught her daughters the importance of fighting injustice. When Europe was on the brink of war in 1939, she took Jewish refugees into their home.

Through their mother’s example, Freddie and Truus “learned that if you have to help somebody, like refugees, you have to make sacrifices for yourself,” says Jeroen Pliester, chair of the National Hannie Schaft Foundation. “I think that was one of the main drivers for them, the high moral principle and preparedness of their mother to act when it really matters.”

Both sisters shot to kill, but they never revealed how many Nazis and Dutch collaborators they assassinated. According to Pliester, Freddie would tell people who asked that she and her sister were soldiers, and soldiers don’t say.

https://www.history.com/news/dutch-resi ... versteegen

IIRC it was Truus who told the story of a Nazis who killed a Jewish infant in front of a crowd. Truus shot the Nazis and the crowd of Dutch citizens protected her so she wasn't caught.

Not to be difficult... "Have a Blessed Day" isn't the same as "Bless Your Heart." Especially in a place like Milledgeville. People all over the south say that, but usually with a very thick accent.

It really does mean "Have a Good Day" but also signals to the other person that you are (to generalize) a rural southern church-going Christian (even if you aren't). You don't hear it from urban or suburban raised southerners unless they are trying to show their rural southern bona fides.

Of course, the urban dictionary says the exact opposite, but I am just going with my decades of experience across the rural south.

K9s wrote: Mon Mar 18, 2019 7:52 pm Not to be difficult... "Have a Blessed Day" isn't the same as "Bless Your Heart." Especially in a place like Milledgeville. People all over the south say that, but usually with a very thick accent.

It really does mean "Have a Good Day" but also signals to the other person that you are (to generalize) a rural southern church-going Christian (even if you aren't). You don't hear it from urban or suburban raised southerners unless they are trying to show their rural southern bona fides.

Of course, the urban dictionary says the exact opposite, but I am just going with my decades of experience across the rural south.

Absolutely true. They can still fuck right off though.

"Have a blessed day" ... just a funny regional habit. They even sort of mean it literally.

In parts of Bavaria and most of Austria they still say "Grüss Gott" (Grüß Gott). It literally means "(may) God Bless (you)". Most people there are not particularly religious - it is really the local way of saying "Good Day".

The real difference between the two locales is that in Austria, total atheists say "Grüss Gott" with no irony. In the Southern US, it is an indicator of less educated, nominally sincere people.

I do realize that if you are an outsider, it may seem like they whole Southern US is against you, and there is some truth to it. But the speech patterns are just that; patterns. People say it without thinking.

As for owning a gun in the South if you are different: good idea.

There's a jingoist quality to it, like asking "Have you been saved?" (I'm not lost) or "Are you a Christian?"

K9s wrote: Mon Mar 18, 2019 7:52 pm Not to be difficult... "Have a Blessed Day" isn't the same as "Bless Your Heart." Especially in a place like Milledgeville. People all over the south say that, but usually with a very thick accent.

It really does mean "Have a Good Day" but also signals to the other person that you are (to generalize) a rural southern church-going Christian (even if you aren't). You don't hear it from urban or suburban raised southerners unless they are trying to show their rural southern bona fides.

Of course, the urban dictionary says the exact opposite, but I am just going with my decades of experience across the rural south.

I get Have a Blessed Day from people in stores from time to time, even here in the Houston metro area.

max129 wrote: Mon Mar 18, 2019 9:16 pm In the Southern US, it is an indicator of less educated, nominally sincere people.

As for owning a gun in the South if you are different: good idea.

YankeeTarheel wrote: Mon Mar 18, 2019 9:43 pm There's a jingoist quality to it, like asking "Have you been saved?" (I'm not lost) or "Are you a Christian?"

This^^^

K9s wrote: Mon Mar 18, 2019 7:52 pm Not to be difficult... "Have a Blessed Day" isn't the same as "Bless Your Heart." Especially in a place like Milledgeville. People all over the south say that, but usually with a very thick accent.

It really does mean "Have a Good Day" but also signals to the other person that you are (to generalize) a rural southern church-going Christian (even if you aren't). You don't hear it from urban or suburban raised southerners unless they are trying to show their rural southern bona fides.

Of course, the urban dictionary says the exact opposite, but I am just going with my decades of experience across the rural south.

You folks who live in the South know the people there better than I, it's rare to hear it here. Thanks for clarifying it.

Yeah, I did live i the South for 15 years and I wouldn't take "Have a Blessed Day" as an insult unless it was a close to an argument or insult, like a cop giving you a ticket and saying "Have a nice day".
OTOH, "Bless your Heart" clearly means "You dumb-ass fuckup!" The less polite might just out-and-out say "You dumb-ass jackleg fuck-up!"

Eris wrote: Sun Mar 17, 2019 5:40 pm

The Liberal Gun Club even sells snowflake targets on its website.

We do? Not that I see. Someone should reach out to HuffPost to get a correction.

They’re probably referring to Liberal Gun Owners, who do in fact sell snowflake targets (and now hats!).

Good catch.

Why would LGC sell snowflake targets?

We don’t. The LGO does.