Hard to tell, but it looks like the copyright says ‘2013.’ But that can’t be, because there’s no Hulk movie coming out. I mean, it’s not like Locher would make a random pop culture reference that makes no sense, right?

But oh gee, look at this cartoon from a decade ago, when the Ang Lee film came out

That would explain the change in font size of the last couple lines, and all that white space in the word balloon.

Yes, Dick Locher is too damn lazy to make another cartoon that says nothing and instead self-plagiarizes himself.

How many people have been killed by movies? Oh, right. None.

And I love how the second cartoon has the statuette holding a chainsaw. You know, to draw attention to all those chainsaw-based mass murder sprees we keep hearing about.

Gamble lands a hit, but then he flubs the follow-through so bad he ends up falling on his face.

Yes, political contributions from the NRA will discourage politicians from advancing or voting in favor of any meaningful piece of gun control legislation.

No, movies and video games and other pieces of entertainment play no role in the wave of mass shootings we are living through. And no, the entertainment industry does not have a committed lobbying arm intended to coerce or control Washington’s activities related to entertainment.

What, are there politicians arguing we should institute a ban on R-rated movies? And is Hollywood pouring millions of dollars into various campaigns to stop this from happening? This isn’t false equivalency, this is making shit up.

Again with the ponytail…

OK, first of all, as I’ve said before, no one wants to ban all guns. Second, the only thing the NRA supports is legalizing full, unrestricted access to all weapons and accessories, both those that currently exist and any technological advances made in the future. Yes, even for those on the terrorist watch list;  people who can’t get on airplanes can buy guns, and the NRA likes it that way.

Third, in the wake of Newtown the position of gun rights advocates is that teachers should be armed. So yeah, they’re calling for government employees (who, on a different day, would be called thugs and incompetent by McCoy and his ilk) to be armed.

If we’re going to have a national conversation on gun control, one of the first things we need to do is let go of this idea that the NRA is in any way sensible or reasonable about their support of the Second Amendment. They aren’t. They are committed to nothing less than the most wide-open interpretation of ‘right to bear arms,’ and they will dig their heels in and fight against any modicum of gun control. And for too long this has not been acknowledged.

Like the idea that America is a “Christian nation,” the idea that the NRA is reasonable on the subject of gun control is something that is asserted by a small minority and accepted uncritically by the majority. The fact that the NRA’s president blamed Newtown on a movie and video game from over a decade ago (relevant fact: the killer was only 2 when Natural Born Killers came out) illustrates perfectly how little they actually care about any dialogue on gun control. One hopes that ridiculous spectacle will wake people up to this fact.

purpleroseninja:

secotm:

Cut off the right half and this is a good cartoon. As it is, it’s crap. Other countries consume the same movies and TV shows and video games as America does, and they don’t have anywhere near the shooting-related deaths and injuries we do. Media representations of crime and violence do not cause crime and violence.

I personally think media has something to do with it. My parents told me that back when my grandparents were kids, they could keep guns in their trucks, go to school and have it in the vehicles, then go hunting after school. People didn’t think a thing of it. Guns have always been around and available and bad things have always happened, but back then shit like this didn’t happen like it does now.

The moral fabrication of society has been turned to shit, that’s what happened. Maybe the media didn’t have a thing to do with it, because like OP says, media is similar around the world. But something happened, my parents were around back in those days and though they may be close-minded sometimes, they can be critical thinkers and I trust them when they say shit like this didn’t happen back when gun laws weren’t so strict.

Society has improved in ways, but it’s also gone to shit in others. That’s all there is to it. I’m sorry if I offend anyone, that’s not my intention and anyone is free to address me on this without me complaining, but I stand by what I say.

What kind of guns did your grandparents carry around? Simple rifles that only fired one shot at a time? Certainly different from the high-capacity, multiple-rounds-per-second assault weapons favored by mass shooters today. The changes in gun technology over the decades have necessitated a re-examination of how our society views and handles guns, which has not happened.

As for the media, this cartoon (and countless gun apologists who pop up after every mass shooting) takes the view that fictional acts of violence encourage people to commit acts of violence. A fallacious idea, as I already said. HOWEVER, there is another unexamined trend in our society: fear-mongering on the part of pundits and ‘journalists.’

Unlike the “Fictional violence leads to real violence” idea, this one is not as obvious a conclusion, thus it doesn’t get as much attention. But it’s more logical, and has actual, direct evidence to back it up. People like Glenn Beck or Alex Jones propagate conspiracy theories about FEMA building concentration camps, George Soros funding communist revolutions, and the United Nations preparing to install a one-world government. And their viewers/listeners swallow this horseshit uncritically. Most of them are harmless in their delusions, at most pouring money into gold, survival seeds and personal bunkers to ride out the apocalypse. Not all of them are harmless. People have been motivated to go after liberal nonprofits, and the Newtown shooter’s mother was a survivalist convinced the end was around the corner.

And the NRA is not innocent of this, either.

As long as the most reactionary elements of society are given an open, uncontested forum in our national discourse, we’ll continue to see the mentally ill being given innocent targets to focus their rage and confusion on, and we’ll continue to see incidents like this one.

***

And “they say shit like this didn’t happen back when gun laws weren’t so strict?” In what way are gun laws strict now? The shooter used a piece of military-grade hardware to carry out the massacre. That is not strict. That is the opposite of strict.

Cut off the right half and this is a good cartoon. As it is, it’s crap. Other countries consume the same movies and TV shows and video games as America does, and they don’t have anywhere near the shooting-related deaths and injuries we do. Media representations of crime and violence do not cause crime and violence.

God damn is this a lazy zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Jeff Stahler, the cure for insomnia.