Yup, the small-town (pop. 800) newspaper of my youth had a column called “Happenings”, which included gems like, “Bill and Sandy Citizen had Reverend Polson over for Sunday dinner; they had Sandy’s glazed ham with all the trimmings” and “Mr. and Mrs. John Doe made a trip to see their son Billy in Chicago, who is in some trouble with the law.” Of course, the weekly police blotter and court docket were always usually published in full. When my father was stationed in postwar Germany, his unit’s civilian staff gathered to hear these things (translated aloud by one of them); they were astonished that such things were routinely publicized.
Not at all! My high school was the same way, and back then the NRA was known for teaching responsible gun ownership and safety instead of being a multimillion-dollar shill/lobby for gun manufacturers.
There’s no reason we can’t have reasonable gun control measures that distinguish among hunting long guns, handguns, and military-grade firearms; we can talk about urban-vs-rural situations as well. The all-or-nothing argument is senseless, in my opinion.
Given the frequency with which cops shoot kids with toy guns, I wouldn’t have my kids running around with any toy even remotely resembling a functional firearm. I’d probably allow it in my privacy-fenced yard, but I would not allow them to roam city streets with toy guns.
There seem to be quite a few people in this discussion who don’t realize that comics are often the target of censorship, including censorship in public schools.
The most well-known examples of recent years would probably be “Gender Queer: A Memoir” and “Maus”, but there have been several others; see the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s website for further details.
Of course, comic book publishers were subject to censorship for up to 60+ years under the Comics Code Authority, and the heyday of underground comix arguably arose in the 1960s due to those comics’ treatment of topics forbidden by the Code.
The censorship of comics is absolutely relevant to this storyline, because censorship is censorship. Do we have to wait for the graphic novel adaptation of Fahrenheit 451 to become a specific target of would-be censors before acknowledging that fact?
Yup, the small-town (pop. 800) newspaper of my youth had a column called “Happenings”, which included gems like, “Bill and Sandy Citizen had Reverend Polson over for Sunday dinner; they had Sandy’s glazed ham with all the trimmings” and “Mr. and Mrs. John Doe made a trip to see their son Billy in Chicago, who is in some trouble with the law.” Of course, the weekly police blotter and court docket were always usually published in full. When my father was stationed in postwar Germany, his unit’s civilian staff gathered to hear these things (translated aloud by one of them); they were astonished that such things were routinely publicized.