Cosmopolitan’s online magazine had published three anti gun articles yesterday.

Yes, Cosmo.  You know, the deeply intellectual magazine for Women, filled with hard hitting pieces like: How to second guess the status of your relationship, with dolls (apparently my bad back is a psychosomatic manifestation that I don’t really love my wife), and Fifteen bullet points to lower your self esteem.

The first is a step-by-step on how you should awkwardly ask your potential boyfriend if he owns a gun and if he’s going to use that gun to kill you – because that’s what men with guns do to women.

The first article quotes Shannon Watts multiple times:

“It’s crucial that single women understand the risk factors and tackle talking directly about the role guns may play in their daily lives,” says Watts. “Being armed with the facts isn’t anti-gun, it’s pro-information. And it may save your life.”

“Do you have a gun?  How did you get it? Is there a problem with your going into a gun shop and buying a gun?”

Why not just make your date fill out a Form 4473 before he picks you up for dinner?

“Where do you keep your gun?”

If the answer is other than “it’s on my hip right now,” why does it matter on a first date?  Or is she going to ask about the state of my smoke alarms and fire extinguishers next?

“‘[B]oyfriends are becoming an increasingly large proportion of those who commit intimate-partner homicides,’ says Shannon Frattaroli, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for Gun Policy and Research.”

Oh Gee, what an absolutely unbiased source.  The article then devolves into a diatribe on the gun show and private seller “loophole” and more stories about how the “he was such a nice guy” boyfriend buys and gun and murder ensues.

The second is an article, rife with cherry picked data and an accompanying video, to make the case that men who own guns are douche-bag “gunsplainers” who are more likely than not to use their gun to murder their wives and girlfriends.  The video embedded in the second article is straight from Everytown’s YouTube channel.

The third is pretty much the 50 Shades of Gray of torture porn with a strong anti-gun bent.

A few days before Valentines, and Cosmo becomes a shill for MDA/Everytown.  The thesis of the THREE articles is “Don’t date a guy that owns a gun, if you do, you are probably going to be murdered.”  Cosmo presents this as dating advice, that women should bring up the issue of guns on the first date and interrogate their potential boyfriends their gun owning and gun buying history.

I’m pretty sure that if my date was convinced by Cosmo to assume that my gun ownership was a sign that I’m a domestic abuser and gave me the third degree about it over ravioli, that date would be over before I got my unlimited bread sticks refilled.

Then again, what do I know?  I’ve been with my wife for 12 years and I’m pretty sure I haven’t murdered her.  Hold on, lemme check… nope, still not murdered.

And now, the word of the day:

“It’s not looking really good for open carry unless some agreement surfaces that provides for some safeguards that you don’t have a Wild Wild West situation with people walking down the streets of, say Miracle Mile or International Di[r]ve or Brickell, like they are walking to the O.K. Corral,” Diaz de la Portilla said.

Source: Florida open-carry bill hanging by a thread | Gainesville.com

This quote from De La Portilla rang my bell hard. Maybe this is where the pressure is coming after all. Allow me to explain.

Let’s begin with International Drive. That is in Orlando and according to Wikipedia:

“The International Drive area is home to the Orange County Convention Center complex, the Pointe Orlando entertainment complex, major hotels, SeaWorld Orlando, the Wet ‘n Wild Orlando water park, the Orlando Eye Ferris wheel, the I-Drive 360 entertainment complex, museums, themed restaurants, bars, outlet malls, and other tourism-related commercial properties and tourist attractions. The major theme park Universal Orlando is also located in the area.”

Not only major hotels but very expensive  major hotels. But also is important for another reason according to McThag:

it does fuck all to alleviate the situation when nothing pro-gun will happen in the state senate because the senate president and the chairman of the judicial committee both have decided that no liberty will be expanded on their watch.

Andy Gardiner is from Orlando and as Senate President he could bring the bill the House passed to a vote, bypassing the judicial committee.  Orlando… Orlando…  Oh yeah, THE FUCKING MOUSE HOUSE.  The anti-gun theme parks own a senator.

But Orlando’s theme parks and Mickey Mouse Mafia was a known quantity, what did not make sense is why should a Senator from Miami concede to Orlando which is a direct competitor for tourism money? Maybe it is just a passing mention to disguise the other two locations mentioned in the article: Miracle Mile and Brickell. Why?

There is a shitload of money associated with those places. Serious money.

Miracle Mile is located in Coral Gables. This is Old Money dating back to the 1920s. The city’s architecture is almost entirely Mediterranean Revival style and among its many residents you will find consulates, diplomatic missions, International banks, big corporations both national and international. We are talking both Nations and private ventures moving billions of dollars.

And then we have Brickell, not too far from Coral Gables and with some of the most expensive real state in South Florida, Can you say High-Rise Condos? And how expensive? According to the Miami Herald:

Let me give you a comparison: A house in my zip code (Middle class, very little crime, good schools, close to highways) goes for an average of under $150 per square foot. We are talking paying four times that for a piece of air inside a building, because that is what condos are, you don’t even own the walls or the floor. And have you wondered where is all that money to build high-priced condos come from in the middle of a deep depression? Just look South and take a guess. Some countries down there are bankrupt and nobody knows where the money went. And there is always the talcum powder…

One last thing about Brickell and Coral Gables: They are not known as ultimate tourist destinations for South Florida. And I do believe Coral Gable residents would call the cops if they smell a tourist in their area. De La Portilla’s excuse about scaring tourists falls quite short of reality.

But I think at the end of the day, it may be simply that he does not want the less-than-posh regular citizens of Miami Dade to pollute the highfalutin look of the Upper Crust Neighborhoods by having guns visible. It embarrasses him. And yes, there is plenty of class warfare even among minorities, but it tends to be a well-kept secret or they don’t get to use the Race Card.

And you thought Fifty Shades of Gray was too much. I don’t think even those into S&M shoot and kill their partners during romantic interludes.

Dear Brady/Moms/Everytown, it is a sure bet to say that if a woman is shot by her partner, the romance is pretty much gone in that relationship.

Rarely do I find New Yorker cartoons to be funny.  But today’s cartoon take on Bloomberg’s consideration for a presidential run is spot on.

A shooting is happening right now at Vassar College. It is the fourth the campus has seen in the past six years. Over 115 have already been killed, their blood spilled on the college fields. Yet, it’s unlikely you’ve heard anything about it. The national media remains silent; not even the local news has covered the grieving families or lost friends. No candlelight vigils, no memorials, no communal mourning, as the victims remain unidentified and seemingly forgotten…

…In the brewing national discussion on gun violence, the most numerous victims–animals–are left out of the conversation. For every human life taken by a gun, hundreds, if not thousands, of nonhuman lives have also been taken. Yet for these victims, gun control advocates not only erase their deaths, but also actively promote and protect the killings. We fail to label the unnecessary killing of animals as gun violence, and instead we euphemize and romanticize it as “sportsmanship.”

Source: The Victims of Gun Violence Politicians Won’t Talk About

This is what happens when ignorant privileged kids have access to keyboards and a website. What makes me laugh even harder is the fact that they believe themselves to be attuned with nature…without stepping into the wilderness themselves. You can bet that the authors cannot differentiate between a wolf track and an ATV track and that at the presence of scat, they would swear somebody dropped a Tootsie roll or a Snickers bar. Then again what can you expect from people whose food struggle is to make sure that the chunk of organically-produced tofu bought at Whole Foods is not past its expiration date.