Prattling Before the Pratfall

Seth Meyers tears into the ridiculous talking points being proposed by Republican gun apologists.

Newsy is a free non-cable news channel available on broadcast television (68-3 in Boston) and on Roku streaming devices. On Newsy a few days ago, a former ATF official commented that he remembers boys having hunting rifles in trucks parked at Texas high schools. “There wasn’t a problem. Something has changed in the past 20-30 years,” he said.

WTF??? Seriously? Texas had, and maybe has, trucks in high school parking lots with unsecured guns?? He isn’t making that up? That is insane! Whoever this former ATF idiot is, he isn’t sharp enough to think up a few points on his own.

First, the guns under consideration today are assault weapons. Second, back in the day, they weren’t available to anyone, let alone everyone on demand, no questions asked. Third, the NRA used to be an organization devoted to gun education and safety. Now it’s an organization devoted to making assault weapons available to everyone, on demand, no questions asked.

Something I see in online comments that really gets me going are the gun nuts who jump on somebody who says “assault rifle.” Their complaint? They want to discuss the exact make and model of weapon that was used in a particular mass shooting, because they feel it’s been mischaracterized as a true assault rifle, as if that matters.

My reply to that is, that would be like me defending a political cartoon that offends them by pointing out it wasn’t inked with a #2 Series 7 Winsor Newton brush, but a #3 brush. IT DOESN’T FRICKIN’ MATTER!

Repeal the Second Amendment. It’s the root of this entire probem. Don’t take my word for it.

I’ve been receiving solicitations, by landline robocall and by regular mail, for extended car warranties. Some of them are for an 11-year-old car I own, and others are for a 2015 Jeep I have never have owned. With any luck it’s just a database error.

It doesn’t seem all that long ago when I read the average age of cars in America was six years. It’s now double that, which explains all the advertising for extended warranties.

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/average-us-car-age-2022-report/

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Follow-up: tastewar has provided further insight in the form of this helpful graph.

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In a way this is good, because cars overall are a lot more reliable than they were in the post-war decades of planned obsolescence, when odometers had only five digits. Reaching 100,000 miles was considered both a miracle and a death sentence, and American cars driven on snowy roads treated with salt started to rust-out after only a few years. There was the Rusty Jones rustproofing service that was pushed by car dealerships. It required drilling holes into the body panels, and because it was often improperly applied, along with poor body work on the holes, the expensive treatment actually accelerated rust development!

CarShield advertises heavily on broadcast television. I am extremely dubious of extended warranty plans, and have no intention of ever buying one.