(courtesy junkee.com)

“Frightened businesses who say guns are OK fear offending NRA nutcases who help pay off scared politicians working for the NRA only and not your family! But what if your child or loved one is killed in a shootout in a local store or school!? This national panic is a result of the money-mad NRA, conning tea party-type American ‘chumps’ into a Second Amendment frenzy. Wise up already, America!” – John T. Reading Sr. [via pnj.com]

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

80 COMMENTS

  1. What if your child rides a bike and gets hit by a car?

    Holy shit, that would be horrifying. But we don’t ban all bikes, even though that actually happens.

    Feeling safe versus being safe… there’s still a big divide.

    • But what if your toddler falls into a common 5 gallon bucket and drowns?!?

      That is horrifying when it happens — and it happens way too often — and yet no one is screeching to ban 5 gallon buckets.

      • But all 5-gallon buckets have warnings on them so that your 2-year old will know not to stick his/her head in it!
        .

        • Yet it still happens…

          Obviously what is needed is to make the act of toddlers sticking their head into buckets illegal.

        • What we need are bucket waiting periods, background checks, and bans on high capacity buckets. Nobody needs a five gallon bucket to wash a car. You can do the same work with a one gallon bucket and a few extra trips to the spigot.

        • Issue is that the stupid are stupid so don’t realize they are stupid. See Uncle Joe.

          Unlike ugly where ugly women know they are ugly and become feminists.

        • In all seriousness I would be in favor of a simple intelligence test. In order to vote you should be required to accurately name the party currently in control of House, Senate, and Presidency (and state equivalents). If you get them wrong you should be informed of the correct answer and allowed to vote. There’s too many people trying to throw the bums out by voting for the bums.

        • As a naturalized citizen, I had to pass such a test, except it mattered whether I got the answers right or not. I agree that it wouldn’t hurt natural born citizens to know such a test was in their future, so they’d brush up on American history, government, and the Constitution.

  3. How many businessmen can he identify who will testify that the NRA threatened them with a boycott or that an NRA member said he wouldn’t patronize them if they didn’t hang out a “guns welcome” sign? The first would be a restraint-of-trade for which the NRA could be prosecuted. The second would be no different from what the Moms are doing: threatening businesses that they will withhold Moms’ patronage if they don’t hang out a “No guns” sign. The more ridiculous the charges the more transparently dishonest they are.

  4. Someone must have held a contest to see who could cram the most nonsense and lies into a single paragraph. Bet this guy didn’t even get honorable mention, however, since this is pretty wild. And I guess John didn’t see the amoung old Bloomberg is spending. I’m sure the NRA would love to get their hands on a small fraction of it.

    • That’s kind of what I was thinking. There is a WHOLE LOT of nonsense in that paragraph.

      I was also trying to imagine a day in John Reading’s shoes. What must it be like to go through life that scare of…EVERYTHING, even things that are not happening? Shootings in stores? Those only seem to be happening in Gun Free Zones.

      He assumes gun friendly stores are only appearing to be gun friendly but can’t REALLY BE gun friendly. I suggest this is more projection on his part. He does not hold any real convictions, so of course no one else can.

      It’s more Statist programming…no one makes up their own mind. To the Statist, we are all just following sheep. He believes we march lock-step to outside orders (the NRA) because that’s all he is capable of doing.

      Man…what a sad existence. He has my pity, but it only goes so far. He’s making a choice to be so pathetic which is itself pretty darn pathetic.

  6. This falls into the Pauline Kael class of statements. Obviously Mr. Reading doesn’t know anybody who supports the Second Amendment so anybody who appears to must certainly subject to NRA intimidation.

    Where are all these gun fights in the local grocery store happening anyway. My inner gun nut wants to go for it but every time I see another gun guy we just end up talking guns.

    • Yep. Reading’s cognitive dissonance took steroids right before he wrote that piece.

      It’s just stunning…so stunningly off …

      I wonder if a bot wrote it as a new entry in the Turing Test. That would explain some of the disconnect.

  7. “Won’t someone please think of the children” + “wake up sheeple” does not a compelling argument make.

  8. Mr. Reading is safely ensconced in the last bastion of the intellectually defunct. OMG! The NRA! OMG!! Shop online!! OMG!!! fer the children!!

  9. WoW! Talk about being ruled by irrational fear. The boogie man is alive and well under this guys bed or in his closet.

    This is perfect example of the immature child being ruled by imaginary and false fears. Much of the feeling, (not thinking) of the gun grabbers is based in the emotionally arrested childish mind set that they still exist in, even if nominally they are called “adults”.

    So how did a bunch of emotionally stunted “adults” come to dominate the schools, universities and our government? I guess they represent the general population.

    • Just remember what Freud really said about guns. Fear of guns is a sign of sexual and immotional immaturity.

      • Freud also said America is a mistake. Don’t put too much stock in that lunatic’s rantings.

    • ThomasR,

      I think the word for which you are searching is “hysterical”. Gun grabbers are quite literally and clinically in every sense of the word hysterical.

      • That’s a good one to add to the list. Delusional. In denial, immature, emotionally retarded and ” hysterical”.

  10. So this is what TTAG has come to? Quote of the day coming from a letter to the editors column from internet philosophers? I had not heard of John T. Reading Sr. so I followed the link. Seriously R. F.? Whats next? “Quote Of The Day: Old TTAG Readers Comments Edition”?

    • Oh, I don’t know; I always like starting the day with a reminder of the type of mental malfunction that is the gun-grabber mind set.

      Almost, I say almost, as good as a strong cup of coffee. 🙂

    • Shhhh! Open carry stuff gets lots of page views because it rouses the peanut gallery into yelling at one other. Page views = money for TTAG.

      • And your point? Oh, that providing for what the gun owning public likes to click on, read, debate and even yell about is a bad thing.

        Robert is providing a service; paid by advertising; that people want to read. And he’s making money at it. It’s the American way.

        G-d bless America.

      • TTAG could have “Quote Of The Day: Rev. Paul T. McCain Edition”. What he has to say carries as much weight as John T. Reading Sr.
        I am just saying, when Huffpo or Salon start quoting TTAG readers, they have obvioulsy ran out of material (not that they had much to begin with).

        • I disagree; it is because of the general population that agrees with and follows the “intellectual elite” and that votes for the politicians that represent this type of thinking that we are fighting to reclaim what was lost. “Know thy enemy”. In the end , it isn’t the politician we have worry about; it’s the people that vote for them.

        • Then why did you read it AND waste even more time REPEATEDLY commenting about it?

          Sorry, man, but I will NEVER comprehend the drive to comment like this on blog sites. If you don’t like an article…move on.

          End of the day, it’s RF’s site and he owes you or me no explanation or justification for ANYTHING he publishes on it.

          • I think Farago appreciates honest feedback on what plays well and what doesn’t on TTAG. If he didn’t, then they would not have posted the reader survey. Just because what I find interesting isn’t your cup of tea doesn’t mean I should not voice my opinion.
            My original point was that had the quote been from a significant person, then it would have been worthy of posting. Otherwise, we might as well pull some crap off YouTube comments and drop it in the echo chamber. Just saying.

        • “I think Farago appreciates honest feedback on what plays well and what doesn’t on TTAG.”

          Fair enough.

          But, what invariably happens in this situation is one person out of 20+ commenters complain about a given story, and it’s not always the same person.

          So, the feedback he’s essentially getting is “you can’t please all the people all the time.” But, 1 in 20+ is not bad odds, really.

          For at least some of us, TTAG is doing a great service posting stuff like this. I want to be informed what even the nutbags on the anti-side are saying, but don’t really want to browse all the nutbag progressive sites on the Internet to do it.

          Plus, I enjoy reading some truly insightful comments as responses to these things.

          Just different ways to look at it, I guess.

          Carry on. No skin off my nose either way. 😉

          • I guess I am just not a hungry dog down in the pit with the rest of you mutts tearing at the raw meat Robert likes to toss into the pin from time to time.

        • “I guess I am just not a hungry dog down in the pit with the rest of you mutts tearing at the raw meat Robert likes to toss into the pin from time to time.”

          🙂

  11. Wonder if his mama is proud or ashamed. She must know he’s writing it, he was sitting on her lap when he wrote it.

  12. So, he’d rather have his child or relative killed by a murderer who met no resistance than for them to be killed while someone is trying to protect them…ah, the “nobility” of victimhood. Frankly, I’d rather know somebody tried to do something.

  14. Because I’m in a shootout just about every time I go for groceries. Aren’t you guys? No? Hmmmm.

  15. OMG! Another anti-gun piece in a newspaper! OMG! Let’s try to discuss this and argue points with the population that has been dumbed down by mass media, pop culture, and the educational system. OMG! we can do it if we just come up with the right debate points! Oh, and let’s keep pretending there isn’t an organized, coordinated public/private effort controlled by the people behind the curtains to disarm the average American. Good grief. I’ve seen enough.

  17. I will admit carrying a gun attracts gunfire. Carrying a long steel rod also attracts lightning. But sans living in a thunderstorm ridden tropical area rife with electrical disturbance I would feel fine carrying an aluminum baseball bat. And aside from war zones, Oakland and Chicago…carrying a gun isn’t likely to attract any statistically significant amount of gunfire to where I am.

    Then, while people with guns are often the target of gunfire…no one actually wants to shoot anything that shoots back. So…”what if I’m killed in a shootout I caused by letting people carry guns in a public place?” Is as rational as asking “what if I’m struck by a car driving on a public road while I’m in a crosswalk?” You can’t ask that with a straight face. You can’t.

  18. I wish the NRA had the power ascribed to it. Makes me want to send $. Do ya’ think doofus’s like this guy expect that result?

  19. Sigh! Once again, the left is claiming that if the situation is allowed to fall towards the conservative way of thinking, then we’ll have bodies in the street and blood in the gutters. Then they think WE’RE stupid when we note that it has NEVER turned out that way. Not once.

    • Wow. Another post you commented on without reading.

      You see Open Carry in the headline and just fire off some nonsense that would make the quoted author proud?

      You and John Reading buddies?

    • Just so long as you bring up some of your cohorts from he Westboro Baptists to pray with you and disperse the protesters.

    • Better idea, how about OC advocates go and stand with the peaceful protesters against the murder of an unarmed man?

      Everyone was so willing to go do some when a OFWG was evading taxes and got in a stand off with the feds, how about now when journalist and people of color are being brutalized by the police?

      Crickets, or action?

      • Flamebait on the Ferguson situation?

        You mean the peaceful protesters that are burning and looting their own community?

        We don’t know the facts of that shooting in Ferguson. What you call ‘murder of an unarmed man’ may well have been a justified self defense.

        If when all is said and done, the facts show the cop was wrong, I doubt he will get any love from the TTAG bunch. It’s quite amazing how it works when people make their decisions based on FACTS rather than baited emotions.

          • Wow, creative editing much, Mr T? Or is it PT, as in Barnum? I believe you purposely forgot the part where it said “If, when all is said and done….”. I guess that would have answered your questions, so you chose to overlook that part. It would be a shame if you did the same in a sermon and advised your congregation to “kill”, neglecting the “Thou shalt not” part.

    • Funny, citizens in that whole area ARE openly carrying weapons, and defending their properties, businesses and lives.

      Why, PaulT, are you against Americans exercising their God given and Constitutionally guaranteed right to self-defense? Hmmmmm? What is your major malfunction, besides being an anti-gun whack job?

  24. “Frightened businesses who say [cars] are OK [in their parking lots] fear offending [normal people] who help pay off scared politicians (wait wouldn’t a scared politician not need paying :P) working for the [car companies] only and not your family! But what if your child or loved one is [run over] in a [parking lot] at a local store or school!? This national panic is a result of the money-mad [car lobby], conning [everyone who uses a car] into a Second Amendment frenzy (oh wait, we don’t have an amendment for driving. my bad.). Wise up already, America!” – John T. Reading Sr. [via pnj.com]

  26. I’m guessing this guy will be “manning” a grill at one of Shannon’s cookouts. He will be complaining that the fire is too hot, and whining about bugs. He will then declare that all steaks must be extra well done, for the children. Don’t drink his last kombucha from the cooler though, he’ll get really angry and underhandedly bitch about it on twitbook later.

  29. Call people scared – CHECK!
    Claim politicians are simply paid off – CHECK!
    Insinuate that law-abiding gun-owners are the cause of shootings and related deaths – CHECK!
    State that people who own or support guns don’t care about your family – CHECK!
    Insinuate people who support gun rights are idiots -CHECK
    Use the words “Wise up!” – CHECK!
    Try to instill hysteria and fear-monger – CHECK!

    This has all the makings of a good gun-grabber article – John T. Reading Sr. sure did his homework!

Comments are closed.