Normally I tend to shy away from politics here on Tangents. Part of this lies with the fact that the site is primarily for webcomic reviews and webcomic commentary (with a smattering of fiction and other review types tossed in). But when Tycho and Gabe decided to speak on the recent attacks by the National Rifle Association on the video game industry over at Penny Arcade, I was so moved by the simple yet elegant argument that I needed to comment on this. You see, I’m one of the quiet majority that exists in the boundary between the NRA’s pro-gun policies, and the gun control activists – I believe in the rights of people to bear arms, and yet do not see a problem with reasonable legislation.
What happened in Connecticut is horrific and tragic. If this incident happened in any other democratic nation (such as Australia), then you would see a reasonable discussion on this, followed by fair and balanced legislation (again, such as in Australia). Instead, we have the NRA blaming the media, the movie industry, video games, comic books, and more rather than the fact that ineffectual gun control and firearm education legislation exists in this country. Thus Tycho and Gabe’s return argument: it is a very odd sort of Patriot that would destroy the First Amendment to protect the Second.
Ultimately, Tycho and Gabe’s little strip (done on lined paper instead of either Bristol board or on a drawing tablet) doesn’t call for guns to be banned or the like. Instead, it is a quiet call out against those who would trash our First Amendment rights. Seeing that links to Tangents Reviews is banned on Facebook as an “abusive website” (yeah. Go figure), I understand how insidious efforts can be to kill our First Amendment rights. Given that the Second Amendment exists to help protect our First Amendment rights, it is wrong to blame all forms of media in an effort to shunt the responsibility to a different front. My hat’s off to Tycho and Gabe. Well spoken, my friends.
This isn’t exactly the best place to mention it, but your facebook having banned Tangents comment does give me a tangentially (heh) related topic at least. My McAfee Siteadvisor plugin keeps telling me that www.tangents.us has been tested to have security risks, and that it is considered a malicious site. The problem is that they don’t give me any details on WHY the site is dangerous, just that they really think I shouldn’t come here.
I don’t know if that’s enough information for you to do anything or not. The URL to the site report for is huge, and I have no idea if it will even let you in if you don’t have McAfee and this plugin installed, but I figured I can give it to you anyway. It may be a start if you want to figure out what they’re talking about. https://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/http://www.tangents.us/?pip=false&premium=false&client_uid=2753440001&client_ver=3.5.0.229&client_type=IEPlugin&suite=true&aff_id=105&locale=en_us&ui=1&os_ver=6.1.1.0
Terribly sorry, but I have to disagree with a good chunk of your argument. The problem that seems to be glossed over is the treatment of the mentally disturbed. It is incredibly difficult to get care for those that are a danger to themselves and others. Plus I want to see writers of zombie movies having a problem working around 99 shot clips like horror writers have to work around cell phones.
Wanderer: If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say that when my site was hacked last year, the bastard responsible left little tidbits behind. I have been seeing a sizable increase in odd traffic heading my way, despite the fact I cannot find the code in my site.
I’ve already contacted my host site. Once they have gotten situated after their move, I’ll be doing a full reinstall of WordPress.
This might require me putting in all the reviews from scratch, mind you. If this is so… well, I’ve a friend I hired to work on the Archives Recovery (and there’s a lot of archives that have been put up by my friend), I’ll just extend the contract to include putting EVERYTHING back up. ^^;;
Tangents may very well be down during that period. But I’d rather kill this #&*^#$ing phishing scheme permanently than deal with this idiocy.
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@Shadowbourne: So you’re saying you’re willing to pay higher taxes so these individuals can be properly treated? Mind you, Tycho and Gabe’s argument is NOT pro- or anti-gun. It’s pro-First Amendment Rights.
@Tangent : I find it odd that you bring up paying additional taxes when we currently enjoy one of the most expensive governments known to man. Do not waste my time with that argument. You might not want to use Australia as the beacon of gun control. Their level of violent crime went up when their ‘gun control’ took effect. As for the First Amendment, the Journal News of N.Y. Just published the names and addresses of anyone with a pistol permit in two counties.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2012/1227/Gun-owner-map-ricochet-Blogger-publishes-journalists-personal-data?nav=87-frontpage-entryNineItem
This put me in a better mood.
This is not a forum for political discourse. This is a forum for discussing webcomics.
So here’s more political discourse! :)
One, I don’t see how gun control would have prevented Newtown in any way. Adam Lanza did everything with his mother’s guns she already had.
Two, the entire aftermath of the shooting – the politicization of the incident, the writing off or oversimplification of what might have motivated him to do it to begin with, the hysteria the mere mention of Asperger’s Syndrome touches off – is a very sad commentary on the state of the country and in a way possibly a reflection of what caused it to begin with.
Three, the NRA and its supporters would have a word with your apparent assumption that gun control is an inherent good, that there’s such a thing as “sufficient” gun control that the USA doesn’t have; they would see it as a governmental intrusion on your free choice and free enterprise. On the other hand, writing off Shadowbourne’s argument with “so you’d pay higher taxes?” feels like a strawman and another sign of what’s wrong with our entire society: “Well, people are suffering, but I sure as hell don’t want to sacrifice my cushy lifestyle for it!” (Funnily enough, the same people probably bankrolling the NRA are probably also the ones preventing us from cutting the most obvious government expense, “defense”.)
To bring this back to a topic less likely to get my comment deleted, I think WordPress allows you to export pretty much everything on the site to an XML file.