Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling for August 03, 2023

They’ve got one thing right for certain: there really are a lot of deranged people out there.

Kids were at risk when there were plenty of guns around Robb Elementary. It’s just that the Uvalde police (who had the guns) needed to visit the Wizard of Oz for their courage. Let’s face it… they were humbugs.

Any remember, ANY attempt to reduce gun violence is exactly the same as total confiscation of all guns.

Any gun violence advocate will tell you.

This was all true then, and it’s true now. Sad but true. In Holland they have a saying, “There are more outside than inside!” Meaning, there are more crazies walking the streets than there are in institutions.

Wait a second… Those teens in panel 2 aren’t SAFE! 2 young boys in a room together alone?! What if they get up to… homosexuality?!

No, they need a chaperone to make sure there’s no indoctrination into the LGBTQ+ agenda. Perhaps their local catholic priest, or a republican politician could babysit them, packing heat of course.

Do you get the feeling the deranged people are making those guidelines?

The problem with this theory is that the “bad guy with the gun” always shoots first.

24 years later and nothing done. Also, when the bad guy with a gun starts shooting, and the good guy with the gun starts shooting back, and the cops with guns arrive and don’t know which is which or who to shoot. Maybe we could just not start shooting at all… Don’t know just how to get there, but what we’re doing isn’t working. Maybe we should try something else, anything else.

Republicans claim mass shootings are a matter of mental health rather than free and easy access to guns … but they certainly won’t spend more on mental health care. Also, note the inclusion of the rifle in the clock tower in the last panel.

[ click ]

I reserve the right to own high-yield, planet-eradicating thermonuclear weapons and be a member of absolutely no militia — well-regulated or otherwise.

[ heavy sarcasm mode: OFF ]

The cops, you know good guys with guns, are getting outgunned by the deranged, but if they didn’t have the guns they could do the same damage to the cops according to the NRA who are also deranged.

“Not Enough Guns” is the eternal rally cry for the Republican Party.

Akin to solving LA’s traffic problems by putting more cars on the road.

Um, Ruben? The only “semi-automatic revolver” ever made was the Webley-Fosbery (made 1901-1924), and anyone who has one has it in a safe, as their value is into 5 figures.

If you want to make an argument, first learn what you’re talking about.

Conservatives say that “An armed society is a polite society.” They got it backwards. It is a polite society that allows for an armed society.

I like the little touch of the clock tower. If Texas had only done a better job of regulating clock towers, that tragedy could have been averted.

Thank dog we emigrated to a civilised country where mass shootings do not take place every day.

As Robert Heinlein said, An armed society is a polite society. Hence the U.S.A. is quite obviously one of the most peaceful and polite societies on earth.

Here’s a true story: I know a family who thought they were safe because the parents kept a loaded handgun in their bedroom. One day their young daughter had a friend over on a playdate. For reasons we’ll never know, she got the gun from her parents’ room and shot her friend, then shot herself, killing them both. But no intruder broke into the house. So did their safety plan work?

Panel 4 recalls a vintage Nat Lamp headline, NRA Presents Award for Marksmanship Beyond the Call of Duty to Charles “Texas Tower” Whitman.

♪♫ Home, home on de range…♪♫

There is no such thing as a semiautomatic revolver. A revolver is the firearm you see in old western movies, use the generic term pistol.

I took an NRA hunter safety course when I was a Boy Scout. That was in 1961 and I got an NRA membership card. Can’t remember anything about handguns or semi-automatic weapons being mentioned at that time. How the NRA has changed over the years.

If one fears deranged individuals with guns, psychological testing before and during ownership would be a basic requirement. Since it is not, what do those who seek to defend themselves with firearms truly fear?

i learnt to shoot a rifle. The instructor offered me an opportunity to fire a revolver & a 9mm pistol. i did, and handled them competently, but the realisation came over me that a handgun had only one purpose: to kill another human being. i thanked him for his time & never took up another handgun.

Q: What do you say to an 8 year old boy who’s just shot and killed his parents with an antique Civil War pistol? A: You say, “kid, you’re an orphan!” Q: That’s an old joke. A: It’s an old gun!

Looks like Mr. Bolling deliberately planted the semi-automatic-revolver “mistake” as bait, to troll the ammosexuals who repeat the tired trope that no one who can’t assemble an AR-15 while blindfolded can comment on the grievous costs of America’s grand gun experiment into revealing themselves. And it worked!

the reason for a basement full of guns is that gun mfrs pay the NRA to say that someday you’ll have to fight the feds to keep your guns. Currently about two mass shootings per week (day?) American exceptionalism again!