NYT Editorial Board Member Attacks NRA for Having Guns in Its Gun Museum

Free Beacon ^ | 4/25/17 | Gutowski

[pabianice]

Op-ed paints gun owners as wannabe thrill killers inspired by John Wayne

Editorial board member Francis X. Clines wrote in the piece that the Fairfax, Virginia gun museum, which features firearms from every era of American history, represents the worst of America. In particular, Clines was troubled by a display detailing gun use in Hollywood movies.

"There are thousands of ingenious, gleaming rifles and handguns in displays about America's gun-rich history of colonialism, immigration, expansionism and vigilante justice," Clines wrote on page A22 of Monday's Times. "But it is the gallery devoted to Hollywood and its guns and good-guy shooters that best illustrates the power of fantasy now driving the modern gun rights debate."

Clines expressed outrage at a cardboard cutout of John Wayne displayed in the exhibit, referencing it several times in his editorial. He said the cutout, which depicts a gun-toting Wayne with a grin full of "menace," promoted fantasies about killing "bad guys" for American gun owners.

"A poster figure of John Wayne, the mega-hero of Hollywood westerns, offers a greeting here at the gun museum’s gallery door as he holds his Winchester carbine at the ready and offers an amiably crooked grin," Clines said. "The bad guys in the movies never fully understood that the menace behind Wayne's grin (‘Whoa, take ‘er easy there, Pilgrim') meant he was about to deliver blazing fantasies of triumphant gunfire that would leave them dead in the dust. It's no wonder modern Florida legislators could not resist protecting actual shooters who draw and fire like John Wayne as guilt-free, ‘stand-your-ground' defenders."

Clines said "the cardboard fantasy of the good guy gunning down the bad guy is what makes the museum work as an enjoyable escape from the life-and-death reality of American gun carnage."

[Kickass Conservative]

Too bad we don’t live in a Morlock free World.

Since we don’t, it’s best to be an Armed Eloi with lots of Range time.

[Lazamataz]

Story 1) “My toddler set off the alarms. Oops. Swift, effective, unobtrusive, friendly security.”

Story 2) Reminds me of the time I took a few little kids to the Patton Museum at Ft. Knox (when it was there and they had tanks there). One of the little “spastic” kids was “crawling” around on some historically rare sword display and apparently set off a silent alarm. Wasn’t but a few seconds after I told the kid to get off of it, I was met by about 4 MPs.

Story 3) When I went to Sanckt Peterborgya, Russia, in 1996 I got to visit many important historical sites, including PeterHof, the Peter the Great's summer palace. I was the typical loud American, literally wearing a cowboy hat and speaking too loudly. When I got too close to one significant display, one of the Russians who was a military guard, pointedly (AND LOUDLY) clicked off the safety on his AK-47.

I peered at him. He looked all of 15 years of age, and had a stoney expression that said, "Why yes, I would be thrilled to kill you, Loud American." I backed the hell off.

So, the morale of the story is that Laz is basically a spastic kid.

[This_Dude]

You have nothing I wanna hear, fella.

[NY.SS-Bar9]

There will always be evil. Guns, by and of themselves, are not evil. The defense of oneself against evil is noble and the antithesis of evil.

In your perfect utopia there is no evil. In the real world you have a right - some would argue a responsibility - to fight evil.

The second amendment was drafted by men with first-hand experience in having their freedom denied. To call it a necessary evil is an affront to natural law.

[dangus]

Again:

A necessary evil is an unfavorable thing that someone believes must be done or accepted because it is necessary to achieve a better outcome—especially because possible alternative courses of action or inaction would be worse... In Common Sense, Thomas Paine described government as at best a “necessary evil.”...

The use of the term “evil” in the phrase does not indicate that the thing being characterized as a “necessary evil” is something that is generally considered an “evil” in the sense of being immoral or the enemy of the good. In Fuller’s use of the phrase, for example, there is no implication that court jesters are evil people, or having one serves an evil end.

[Celtic Conservative]

Aw, you don’t wanna try that in Detroit. Besides most people wouldn’t believe it. Everybody is armed there- good and bad.

CC

[cowboyusa]

These people are not Americans. They are NWO Traitors.

[NY.SS-Bar9]

You do realize how convoluted your statement is, don't you?

Then again, you probably don't.