Author and columnist Sarah Kendzior was on vacation in Branson, MO, and went to the grocery store, a non-event which precipitated this tweet.
I was trying to figure out just how anti-gun this post is. Ms. Kendzior didn’t seem particularly pearl clutching, and even followed up with this.
She is the author of the book The View From Flyover Country which is a collection of essays about politics from a Liberal in St. Louis.
She gives her professional credentials as:
I am currently an op-ed columnist for the Globe and Mail, where I focus on US politics. I also am the US correspondent for the Dutch news outlet De Correspondent. Previously I was an op-ed columnist for Al Jazeera English, where I wrote about exploitation, particularly in higher education, the diminishing opportunities of America’s youth, and gentrification. I have also covered internet privacy, political repression, and how the mediashape public perception. My April 2013 article “The wrong kind of Caucasian” is the most popular AJE op-ed of all time.
I have also written for POLITICO, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, Quartz, Slate, The Atlantic, Medium, Radio Free Europe, Opinio Juris, Alternet, HRDCVR, POLITICO Europe, The Chicago Tribune, The Baffler, Blue Nation Review, Alive Magazine, Ethnography Matters, Registan.net, The Common Reader, The New York Daily News, La Stampa, World Policy Journal, The Brooklyn Quarterly, The Diplomat, Marie Claire, Centre for International Governance Innovation, Teen Vogue, City AM, World Politics Review and The New York Times.
Perhaps as a flyover resident, even Left of center, she was just illustrating America’s gun culture.
No tweet about guns goes unnoticed on the internet, and the regular fools came along to voice their opinions on this horror as well as devolving into typical Red State bashing.
But this one was my favorite
The answer is: it doesn’t matter.
Branson is a few hours drive from Ferguson, site of the famous Ferguson Unrest. A series of “protest” in the name of a new “civil rights movement.”
AR-15’s and high capacity handguns are not for vampire ducks and zombie deer. They are for arsonists and looters who might turn you into the next Reginald Denny (Yes, I know that was LA in 1992, but the horror of that video has been burned into my mind).
It’s not about ducks and deer. It’s about keeping you from becoming a casualty of those – from Ferguson, to Portland, to Baltimore, to Berkeley, to Hamburg – who, more and more, think that smashing things, beating people, and burning buildings is the way to get their point across.
I could take the same picture of the magazine rack at Barnes & Noble in Canton, CT. Maybe even a better selection. Who would have thought that “flyover country” could infiltrate the leftist bastion that is Connecticut so deeply?
How ironic it is for a journalist from St Louis to comment about the Gun Culture of Branson Missouri; you see it was a group of “Gentile” sportsmen from St Louis that purchased the huge log cabin that had been the pavilion for the state of Maine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_of_the_Ozarks) at the 1905 Worlds Fair in St Louis. At the end of the fair, the building was disassembled and moved to a point near Branson and for years was a favorite haunt of the Elite Gentry who came here to hunt and fish. One historical account retells how a member of the Boston symphony was here to hunt wolves; and of course there are numerous other accounts of the elite from Chicago and the north east states who came here to hunt or fish and became enthralled with the natural beauty of the Ozarks. This exposure to the outside world helped to establish Branson as a tourist destination, all thanks to the Elite Gun Culture of St. Louis.
In or about 1993 the area was “discovered” by all of the morning talk shows on the major TV networks, highlighting the numerous theaters opened by the great dinosaurs of Country Music. These men and women found that they could open a theater, perform for their fans, and then sleep in the same bed each night instead of living a life on the road. This latter day exposure in a time of high unemployment brought a tidal wave of folks here looking for a job. Tent cities back in the hills and woods at that time would not have been a hyperbolic statement. The area has also been discovered by retirees from all over the US, who brought with them their adult children. All of this having the effect of bringing big city problems to the hills where the long time residents once left doors unlocked overnight; no one leaves doors unlocked now.
Not twenty miles–as the crow flies–from where the lady in question photographed the magazine rack, an old couple was brutally murdered by two juveniles from a local home for “Troubled Boys” (http://www.news-leader.com/story/news/crime/2016/02/19/stone-county-murder-trial-update/80615426/) more recently an old man–while riding his bicycle through his rural subdivision–was attacked by a pack of wild animals and later succumbed to his injuries. Outstanding detective work by Deputies from Christian County (county just north Taney county where Branson is located) revealed that the wild animals were in fact a pack of Boxers a careless neighbor allowed to roam freely. These reports are just the tip of the iceberg of stories that justify being armed in what is still a largely rural area where law enforcement officers are spread too thinly over large areas and cannot possibly be expected to “be there” to save the day, one must obviously be prepared or suffer the consequences.
As for me, I have lived in “these here parts” for more than fifty years and although I am not a native son of the Ozarks, I feel qualified to comment. Owing property not 20 miles from downtown Branson I have an intimate knowledge of the periodicals offered in any local grocery store. What the young lady failed to mention is that gun magazines and truck/car publications make up about 1/3 of the offering. Fashion, home, health, and other publications once stereotypically thought of as ladies magazines make up the remaining inventory.
I lead a small Orthodox Anglo-Catholic jurisdiction which was founded by our late Patriarch, Archbishop Francis, who was a concealed carry license holder. He “emigrated here” from New Orleans about the time of Hurricane Katrina. While he was a devout follower of God, he also believed God gave us the gift of common sense, which in my mentors opinion, included the carrying of arms for self defense in a time when lawlessness prevails everywhere, even in rural America.
There are new Reginald Denny’s created every week across this country. They barely get local news attention because they are inconvienent victims.
Arming yourself because of Reginald Denny is an act of extreme paranoia and unfounded fear. Real violent crime stats are astoundingly low. You’d do much better to install a 5-point seatbelt in your car and wear a helmet while walking down the street. Driving and bumping into walls are a far more likely cause of injury. Take a deep breath and try to not live in fear. You’re not going to be attacked by an angry mob or eaten by a rabid pack of dogs. That’s crazy talk.