Paranoid America: Surge In Gun, Ammo Sales

The paranoid strain in American culture manifests itself when reacting to crises like the coronavirus pandemic. In their fevered imaginations, gun humpers believe that their homes will be attacked by mobs looking for food, medicine, toilet paper, etc., and they need to be heavily armed as a result. This is why the sales of guns and ammunition are surging at retail outlets across the country as the paranoids are letting their apocalyptic imaginings of home invasions run wild. Expect stories in the coming weeks of paranoid gun owners shooting delivery people or neighbors at their doors in cases of fear-fueled homicide.

It's not just pandemics or hurricanes or other natural disasters that prompt the gun humpers to buy buy buy. The paranoids rushed to buy weapons after President Obama was elected, told by the National Rifle Rampage Association and other wing nuts that the gubmint was going to confiscate their arsenals and force them to eat vegetables in labor camps run by lesbians. It's how the NRA keeps its coffers full.

(photo: "I can't remember orderin' pizza. Better plug 'im to be safe.")

Bikers Exercise Second Amendment Rights In Waco, Texas; Nine Die

Nine members of several bike gangs were killed in a shootout in a "Twin Peaks" breastaurant (think "Hooters," but less classy) and parking lot in Waco, Texas on Sunday.  Nearly 200 people were arrested in the aftermath of the carnage.  These thugs good ol' boys had plenty of guns and ammo at their finger tips (over 100 1,000 weapons were seized at the scene).

While some bikers directly participating in the violence were cuffed, here's a photo of another group after the shootout:

(AP Photo - Rod Aydelotte)

Are you noticing anything...  odd?  Like maybe the biker on his cell phone, others hanging around like they were maybe getting a "time out" from the cops?  Oh, yeah.  They're all white.  They're also potential shooters or, minimally, witnesses to the shootout.  Charles Blow detects a teensy disparity between the treatment of Waco and these good ol' white boys and the "blahs" in Baltimore:

Wonkette wonders if the gun-fondlers in the National Gun Manufacturers Rifle Association will come up with a catchy new slogan defending the Second Amendment rights of the bikers to use their shootin' irons in such a way, and adds:

As of press time, we have not yet heard from Alex Jones on the matter, so we aren’t certain whether the bikers were all crisis actors pretending to have a shootout so the feds can seize all the guns, or if the incident is part of Operation Jade Helm 15, and hence a slightly different flavor of false flag incident staged so the feds can seize all the guns. The one thing it couldn’t possibly be was a bunch of armed thugs blowing each other away because guns are always the solution.

Because an armed society is a polite society!

Quote of the Day

"The Republican party exists today on a foundation of empowered ignorance and weaponized paranoia, and what party leaders there are know it, and they have shown no indication that they're going to do anything substantive to change it."  -- Charles P. Pierce, today.  See what's the latest Rethuglican ignorance and paranoia Mr. Pierce is pointing to,  here.

The Pills and Boo-Hoo Show

Arguably two of the biggest crackpots on the far right (and that's saying a lot) were together (at least telephonically) the other day: Pills was a guest on Boo-Hoo Beck's un-reality show. The appropriately named Crooks and Liars has the vid and partial transcript. Boo-Hoo looks and sounds more and more like someone on the verge of a nervous breakdown, complete with crawly bugs with Obama faces, inside a FEMA camp with man-beast ACORN guards. Pills is just his odious, lard-assed self.

(Image: the ACORNS are coming!!)

We Rest Our Case

As if to prove Frank Rich's point, and the long-running meme of incoherent wingnut fury, we have this cautionary tale of a fevered Glenn "Boo-Hoo" Beck fan named Nancy Genovese who was busted for... oh hell, read the story.

Let this be a warning to the Boo-Hoo fans who take his and other crackpot blowhards' black-helicopter-paranoid-DT visions seriously. (P.S., she's not the only one who should get a psychiatric examination!)

"Boo-Hoo" Beck's Clunker Conspiracy

Fux's quintessential crackpot, Glenn "Boo-Hoo" Beck, is weighing in on the "cash for clunkers" program. His beef? Well, dontcha know it's more of the same wingnut melange of silly paranoia, misinformation, half-truths, and outright lies, seasoned with salty tears from Boo-Hoo's porcine eyes. Check it out here.

Has the Boo-Hoo trip-to-the-asylum countdown begun yet?

May Her Wish Come True!

Rethuglican loony Rep. Michelle "Commies In Congress" Bachmann has a new paranoid fantasy: the census, which is taken every 10 years, is a conspiracy to round up wingnuts and send them to FEMA concentration camps, where they will be forced to listen to Barbara Streisand songs and watch reruns of M*A*S*H* all day! Therefore, nutty Michelle says she won't be filling out her census form, and hopes that her constituents follow suit.

What this loony lady fails to realize is that Congressional seats are apportioned according to population, so if her 6th Congressional district voters don't complete their census forms, her Congressional seat might be absorbed by another District, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Bwahahahaha! The paranoid chickens come home to roost!