One sign we feel the wind at our backs these days is that the question can even be formulated this way.

On a side note, I thought it was interesting that despite Webb spending a lifetime around guns, the gun groups mostly supported that fake cowboy George Allen.

Or Kerry vs. Bush, for that matter.

I think you'd have to be a pretty credulous gun lobbyist to actually favor a Democrat on gun policy. Get a fake cowboy who will take your money and stall gun control legislation any day. The places where there's been movement have been in the Mountain West where sportsmen's associations have made common cause with environmentalists against despoilage of hunters' tromping ground. Democrats in those areas have been able to neutralize the gun lobby by stating that they just don't really care that much about gun control, signaling that the lobby's money would be better spent elsewhere.

Also, I am something of a fake cowboy. I have a really nice hat and great boots. And once I caught a chair with a lasso. Harder than you'd think.

the gun groups mostly supported that fake cowboy George Allen.

The gun groups are, for the most part, wholly owned subsidiaries of the Republican Party. The Democrats could run a Smith/Wesson ticket this fall and still not get endorsed, just as we could run Jesus and Moses and the Christian Coalition would still still endorse Rudy Giuliani if he got the GOP nomination.

The stunt would have been to try to carry the gun on the airplane.

ttaM, if you're not sleeping on your saddle next to the 'ol chuckwagon, do Czechs and other central Europeans still have those cowboy dress-up excusions?

And then kill snakes with it! I love the new macho Dems.

6: Cowboys do that.

re: 7

No idea, but my wife seems to have been exposed to a lot of Karl May stories growing up. Winnetou and Old Shatterhand and the like.

I think the Karl May cult is at the heart of it, yes. My wife's mother remembered being absorbed in them, in a way we don't get.

I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that said "It's not the Guns, its Bad Parenting." And I thought, well, okay: but you're never going to perfect human nature. And while blaming Bad Parenting might be all well and good, it's not really a lot of consolation if some badly parented gun-wielding kid shoots me or someone I know.

Sure, but what would be?

Blaming the public school system.

They act in loco parentis anyway, don't they, so it's not much different in the end.

But then it's *society's* fault.

That's bullshit, B. You're a white suburban punk like me.

B is actually just trying to slip out of the blame before PK goes on a rampage.

18. Picking off students from the belltower, screaming "this one's for Micky!"

18: Or alternately, for Mallory, if you're from Firedog Lake.

Back to the original topic, the news this morning seems to be saying "not screwup", but the story it's being grouped with is odd.