Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) announced on Friday that he was canceling an appearance he was supposed to make that morning at the National Rifle Association’s convention in Houston.
Coward.
Should be fun to see who stays bought.
Shame?
No.
Empathy?
No.
Political calculation?
Bingo!
He’s very brave for putting up with the inevitable death threats from his base. RIGHT? Right??? Gosh, it’s so darned confusing to be a Republican.
Darn. I was looking forward to his talk about the need to fund mental health resources. /s
What a wuss. He can talk the talk but he can’t walk the walk.
'E’s buggered off! 'E’s scarpered!
Democrats need to start talking A LOT about how guns are not allowed at these events. Most people don’t know that.
He’s still Evil. But the circumstances have changed.
Fucking cowards. They’ll still take every NRA-laundered Russian ruble, however.
The old the optics are bad if I am seen there but he still loves the guns. He and Cruz are of the same mindset in that “hardening” a school building and arming teachers is preferrable than say making sure AR’s and similar firearms and high-capacity magazines are restricted. No problem just dig a moat around every school in America. Fill the moat with crocodiles equipped with remote controlled rocket launchers on their heads.
The best reason to read Paul Krugman is his opinions on economic issues.
However, today’s column, The G.O.P. War on Civil Virtue and how "The G.O.P. Doesn’t Think People Should Have to Obey Rules " specifically addresses Dan Patrick’s response to school and other mass shootings and how utter ridiculous it is.
From the column:
It’s hard to say which of the Republican responses to the latest mass shooting was most reprehensible.
But if you ask me, the worst and also most chilling response came Dan Patrick.
What we need to do, declared Patrick, is “harden these targets so no one can get in, ever, except maybe through one entrance.”
That restriction would have interesting consequences in the event of a fire. But in any case, think about Patrick’s language: In a nation that’s supposedly at peace, we should treat schools as “targets” that need to be “hardened.” What would that do to public education, which has for many generations been one of the defining experiences of growing up in America? Don’t worry, says a writer for The Federalist: Families can keep their kids safe by resorting to home-schooling.
Actually, if you take the proposals by Cruz, Patrick and others literally, they amount to a call for turning the land of the free into a giant armed camp. There are around 130,000 K-12 schools in America; there are close to 40,000 supermarkets; there are many other venues that might offer prey for mass killers. So protecting all these public spaces Republican-style would require creating a heavily armed, effectively military domestic defense force — heavily armed because it would face attackers with body armor and semiautomatic weapons — that would be at least as big as the Marine Corps.
Why would such a thing be necessary?
Not, according to the U.S. right, because we’re a nation where a disturbed 18-year-old can easily buy military-grade weapons and body armor. No, says Patrick, it’s because “We’re a coarse society.”
I know it’s a hopeless effort to say this, but imagine the reaction if a prominent liberal politician were to declare that the reason the United States has a severe social problem that doesn’t exist elsewhere is that Americans are bad people. We’d never hear the end of it. But when a Republican says it, it barely makes a ripple.
OK, I think everyone realizes that none of what Republicans are saying about how to respond to mass shootings will translate into actual policy proposals. They’re barely even trying to make sense. Instead, they’re just making noise to drown out rational discussion until the latest atrocity fades from the news cycle. The truth is that conservatives consider mass shootings, and for that matter America’s astonishingly high overall rate of gun deaths as an acceptable price for pursuing their ideology.
But what is that ideology? I’d argue that while talk about America’s unique gun culture isn’t exactly wrong, it’s too narrow. What we’re really looking at here is a broad assault on the very idea of civic duty — on the idea that people should follow certain rules, accept some restrictions on their behavior, to protect the lives of their fellow citizens.
Where does this hatred of the idea of civic duty come from? No doubt some of it, like almost everything in U.S. politics, is related to race.
One thing it doesn’t reflect, however, is our national tradition. When you hear talk of home-schooling, remember that the United States basically invented universal public education. …….
And Hollywood mythology aside, most towns in the Old West had stricter limits on the carrying of firearms than Gov. Greg Abbott’s Texas.
As I suggested, I don’t fully understand where this aversion to the basic rules of a civilized society is coming from. What’s clear, however, is that the very people who shout most about “freedom” are doing their best to turn America into a “Hunger Games”-type dystopian nightmare, with checkpoints everywhere, loomed over by men with guns.
Outstanding
“While a strong supporter of the Second Amendment and an NRA member, I would not want my appearance today to bring any additional pain or grief to the families and all those suffering in Uvalde,” Patrick said on Friday. “This is a time to focus on the families, first and foremost.”
Let me get this straight, are you suggesting that the activities of the NRA are in any way connected to the tragedy of Uvalde? If not, why are you skipping attendance? Would you have cancelled your attendance if it had been a convention of the Order of Elks?
There is one plus for the NRA attendees. With Patrick out, his head won’t intrude on those seated next to him. Speaking of, is Gorka going?
Trump, Noem, and Cruz, aka The Axis of Evil 2.0, remain intransigent, tone deaf, self-righteous, and corrupt to their core.
They are not manly enough, or Trump enough, or NRA enough to kill unarmed children so they have no value in the Republican Party.
So, the NRA is in favor of gun control where their own safety is concerned.
I’d say when anyone tries to come up with reasons/excuses for their banning guns at their own convention, the best response is: “You’ve got to be kidding. The NRA is banning guns at their own convention.”
(And if their excuse is that the venue requires gun control, the question of course is: why don’t you find another venue? Why couldn’t you find one that allows guns? How about out in the middle of the desert somewhere? You’ll need guns to shoot the ratters, so that’s something.)
Another day, another Texas Republican Coward.
Especially galling because this jackass implied that gun owners were the real victims here.