Demonstrators stand on the capitol grounds ahead of a pro gun rally, Monday, Jan. 20, 2020, in Richmond, Va. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Michael Matthews, manager of the Virginia State Police’s Firearms Transaction Center, told The Free Lance–Star that 587,107 background checks were conducted in just the first nine months of 2020. “This is more than our previous highest year, which was 2016, with 505,722 transactions for the entire year,” he noted.

The General Assembly’s action would have been considered a rousing success if the goal was to increase, rather than decrease, the number of firearms in the commonwealth. But since there are now more than a half million more of these weapons in Virginia than there were before the Democrats’ highly-touted gun control bills passed, one can only conclude that the effort was a total flop.

Who would have guessed that Democrats in Richmond would be better at increasing gun sales in Virginia to record levels than the NRA?

– Editorial, Virginia’s predictable gun control backlash

55 COMMENTS

  1. I’m going to say, I think the new leftist tactic of outright terrorism has actually resulted in more gun sales then ever before, even more then threats of gun control.

    That’s the one tactic I’m sure your familiar of, where they stir up a violent mob of criminals and arsonists, then proceed to have them burn, loot, and murder across an entire city, with the media at their back and the local DA in support so they face no legal repercussions. Then, also claim that defending yourself from the mob is racist.

    These repeated events likely shocked America as much or even more then 9/11 in my opinion.

    Hopefully we’ll see a rebuttal of this tactic at the polls next week… But you never know. The Democratic Party has a lot of tricks up its sleeve and is backed by communist China so we’ll see.

    • How is it possible to find one shred of “common sense” in Gun Control when Gun Control is rooted in racism and genocide? Obviously for Gun Control Zealots the KKK and the Nazi SS are their “go to” for common sense

      TRUMP/PENCE 2020.

    • “leftist tactic of outright terrorism”

      Absolutely, that’s it. I was keeping an eye on prices and inventory. Things were beginning to come back after the initial pandemic rush. Then the 93% peaceful riots started…

      • Yes, the outright terrorism by the unhinged supporters of Donald Trump is getting out of hand.

        Don’t hold your breath for the ‘law and order‘ president to condemn violent property destruction by his supporters, you’ll turn blue…

        “HAINES CITY, Fla. — A 26-year-old man has been accused of stealing a bulldozer from a Florida construction site, driving it into a neighborhood and knocking down campaign signs for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, according to authorities and homeowners.

        The man took the bulldozer in Haines City on Saturday and repeatedly destroyed Biden signs in full view of people who live in the neighborhood, witnesses said. James Blight was charged with grand theft auto and trespassing, according to the Haines City Police Department.

        Former Vice Mayor Adam Burgess lives in the central Florida neighborhood, which he said is predominantly Black. He called it a hate crime.”

        • Is the dozing of political signs a nationwide trend? No? Just some lone nut? Are there any widespread cases of vandalism against Trump signs? You aren’t a serious person, are you? There are rules and there are always exceptions to said rules.

    • “Then, also claim that defending yourself from the mob is racist. . .” This all feels like Germany in the 30’s. The real issue that we all have to confront is what happens when they come for our guns?

      Fascism—what we’re seeing develop in “progressive” America at the moment—is the right wing of the left wing. Fascism is still socialist despite co-opting oligarchic wealth instead of simply confiscating wealth (This explains why big tech, big pharma, and big wealth is getting cosy with progressives). A key aspect of all forms of socialism, fascism or otherwise, is that the state cannot allow an armed populace to exist. Gun confiscation always follows socialist takeovers and, of course, this fundamental tenant of all forms of socialism directly conflicts with the 2nd Amendment’s clear admonition that an armed civil populace is an essential defense against governmental tyranny.

      Essentially, the 2nd Amendment was conceived as a way of insuring the kind of power sharing that would protect liberty and freedom. The agendas inherent in revolutionary socialist change—the Green New Deal for example—cannot function unless they are supported by authoritarianism. In a country like ours, with it’s historic emphasis on liberty and freedom, we can count on about 50 percent of our population to resist ideas like the Green New Deal. To enforce these new agendas government will require substantially expanded police powers, i.e., the police state so favored by socialists throughout history. Want to know why AR’s and AK’s with 30 round magazines are vilified by the left as “weapons of war”? You’re answer is right here.

  2. So, will all these “new gun owners” we keep hearing about, the minorities and women, vote to keep these new firearms they’ve purchased??

    That’s the “587,107 gun” question, isn’t it??

    • For us folks in slave states, it’s like boiling a frog. For new gun owners they dont know how wrong it is to be restricted to only 10 round mags, to have to modify their AR because it looks scary, or to have to wait every 30 days to buy a new gun. Recent new gun owners have not experienced the Dems slowly ignoring the Constitution and think some gun control is normal and necessary. In addition to that, the Dem/Socialist/Libs, with the help of the media, will hype-up gay/women’s/minority rights as a distraction, a higher priority, making gun rights a lower priority. The mass majority of these new gunowners just don’t know better, and won’t be provocative about fighting for 2A because they already procured a gun. Few will join us in the fight, but the majority of them won’t. It’s up to us longtime gun owners to help the new folks see the light before the Dems create more slave states.

      • “hype-up gay/women’s/minority rights as a distraction”

        I love how they pretend we never passed any civil rights laws. These lawmakers are literally trying to make new racist laws in California. They’ll wrap it up in a catchy title so the sheep that want to feel virtuous will support it.

  3. The DimCommie party fail to realize that they are the nations greatest arms sales force. Between their ideologies Covid tyranny and then their Antifa,BLM rioting,,they keep pushing hard and the arms sales will surely set a new national high.arm up and carry on.

    DemoCommie’s Gun Sales Party of 2020 !

    • I was loving the slump! Prices came down, plenty of everything….and then..2020.

      ..sigh…smh

      On the bright side..I’m still alive, still punching paper at the range and have plenty of toilet paper…

      • I told everyone for the last couple of years to buy a gun and ammo. Great selection and great prices. And then Covid hit. Lol
        On top of that we have gun grabber/banner Biden up for President.
        If he gets elected there will be a run on whatever is left that will make the 2012 fiasco look like nothing.
        Barrett may be the only saving grace here.

        • I DID buy! Including an AR,accessories and lot’s of boo-lits. I wish I’d bought more at the WallyWorld sell-out😕😕😕 Win or lose there’ll be he!! to pay…

        • Same here.
          Ramped up my firearm and ammo buying in ’17, then purchased heavily thru ALL of ’18 and ’19. Great deals were EVERYWHERE, even egun.de (German Gun Broker).
          The deals were so good in Europe, I purchased several handguns off egun.de, then went thru learning the export/import process to get the group into the US. Had never done the process before, but was NOT passing up on paying around 30% to 40% the US prices for the same guns. Took over 5 months to get the group to my FFL .
          The TDS and “swamp critter” behavior following the Trump ’16 victory was an indicator for where we are today.
          Trump/Pence 2020

        • Get a clue troll.
          https://simpsonltd.com/firearm-imports/
          The entire process is detailed here.
          Simpson LTD has an employee by the name of Nica Ponce who will walk ANYONE who can pass a 4473 NICS check thru the export/import process.
          Like I said before, TTAG has the dumbest trolls on the internet. They go above and beyond to prove this fact EVERY day.
          Trump/Pence 2020
          Keep dancing leashed monkey, I COMMAND you!

        • Nah. Trump’s gonna blow it out and turn polling and media on its head forever. I really believe we’re gonna see a golden age for 2A after 2020.

        • Wow widdle twool, this DeutschlandUberAlles Walther Forum member (from Texas) has like, a TON of classic Walther handguns. He has imported stuff like UBER rare P5 Langs (6″ barrel target variation, under 90 complete guns ever produced), and DeutschBank Munich (13 Ludwigstrauss) ex- security firearms.
          In 2018 and 2019, many members on Walther Forums concluded DUA was probably the MOST hardcore private collector of classic German handguns in THE ENTIRE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!!

          Geez, I wonder who this DUA guy could POSSIBLY be?

          https://www.waltherforums.com/threads/finally-a-classic-walther-for-me.111290/

          That’s known as a mic drop AND nut stop moment little leashed monkey troll.

          Dance for me you little flushed turd!

          Trump/Pence 2020

      • Thanks James this will add a few more options for the family’s upcoming handgun availability hunt 🙂

        • No doubt.
          Egun.de is awesome for firearm purchases.
          I HIGHLY recommend Simpson LTD as your importer. Nica Ponce has to be one of the BEST people I’ve ever dealt with in purchasing firearms. Hermann Historical is a good German exporter. WaffenBock takes several weeks to do a process that takes a few days, and hardly EVER responds to emails, avoid them.
          I wonder where my widdle twoll is.
          I guess he’s stuck on that pic of SEVEN P5s, one for every day of the week. 🤣 Or the NIB P88C with factory NILL Griff walnut grips. Or the Lang, the last one on GB sold for over $9k. The W forum didn’t even know the P88cEXISTED until I found a collector in Houston had it, and was willing to sell.
          If I really wanted to brag, I would link my pics of my HKs, or my Pardini handguns, but, the Walther collection should suffice.
          The little shit slinger troll needs to realize he’s beyond his depth and swimming with sharks. He needs to get back to shore before he’s bitten in two. 🦈
          Having personal connections to owners of a few forums I frequent, getting IPs would be a piece of cake………..IF I don’t have them already. 🤣
          Swim little mud shark. Back to shore. Quickly! Swim to mommie..🦍
          Trump/Pence 2020

        • “Thanks James this will add a few more options for the family’s upcoming handgun availability hunt 🙂”

          If you do decide to purchase overseas and import, be sure your importer is near the international airport receiving the firearms flying into the US from overseas.
          You will be paying a Bonded Courier service to retrieve the package from Airport Customs, secure in an approved transport vehicle, and transport the firearms to your Importer.
          This can be the biggest cost of the process if not planned correctly.
          I have the German exporters fly them into O’Hair. This makes for a short Bonded transport to Simpson LTD in Gailsburg.
          That transport fee is usually around $200, so four firearms in a shipment only cost $50 per firearm.
          Trump/Pence 2020

        • Ah yes, James Campbell is giving advice on his imaginary gun import efforts. What a choad!

          Trump/Pence 2020

        • “Thanks James this will add a few more options for the family’s upcoming handgun availability hunt 🙂”

          Make sure to be arrow straight when filling out the BATFE EUCs (End User Certs) SafeUpstateFML.
          The BATFE is actually reasonable with the “reason for import” details.
          My imports have all been defined as “Range Use/Personal Collection on the EUC docs, and have breezed thru the US approval process in under two weeks.
          That link from that DUA guy on Walther Forums has lots of useful info too.
          I wonder who he is?🤣
          Trump/Pence 2020

        • James found some info in case we need it and you are right the forums do have a lot of the basics laid out. Hoping NY’s overly restricted laws work in our favor in keeping some stock on the shelves till the wife and I are allowed (grumble Sullivan act) to buy but if not walther did seem to fit the bill. Also that is an impressive troll collection. Keep it up and you can cast the next movie.

        • Glad to help FML.
          Don’t hesitate to give Nica Ponce at Simpson LTD a call if you have and questions or trepadations.
          As stated prior, she is worth her weight in gold for ANYONE wanting info on the Import process.
          I wonder if my buddy looked thru the W Forum. Lots of interesting stuff on there. That DUA guy goes into extensive detail on lots of interesting hardware. That Patriot Ord Factory P308 SPR piston gun finished in Robar NP3 (electroless Nickel with Teflon) is about as slick as an AR can get.
          https://youtu.be/GuAXcZmLNmM
          🤣
          Trump/Pence 2020

  4. At this point the only new rifles coming into the Capital region of NY are AR derivatives so congrats to our gun sales marketing department (the governor and most of our legislature) you have just normalized the platform and created an ever increasing number of people that realize how absurd the SAFE act is.

  5. Must just be one or two of those “super owners” buying half a million guns because it’s FACT that 99.99999% of the population supports “commonse” gun laws.

  6. Just over a week to go…my daughter and her husband are going to the polls with the wife and I. After we vote we will set up for a celebration I have stocked up for. I am hoping for a few new republican Senators and a few dozen new seats in the House.

    • Hoping to flip one of our congressional seats up here, the state reps are pretty locked in but one step at a time. Hopefully we will not lose any representatives we want to keep after the 2020 census likely cuts 1 maybe 2 congressional seats for NY.

  7. Does not help when they actually come out and say they are coming for the guns…actively want bans and confiscations and mandatory buybacks or licensing of legally owned items.
    The vast majority of BLM protests are non violent…right?
    And an even larger and vaster amount of gun owners are non violent…that is definitely a fact.
    But why let facts get in the way?
    If it saves just one life? Right? Well…except for abortion. Big asterisk by THAT one.

  8. I’ve never seen early voting like this year. Last week, I drove by the polling place at 10:30 on a Tuesday morning. There was nowhere to park, and people were lined up across the parking lot waiting to vote. I’ve voted early before, and no one is ever there. You walk right in and vote without waiting. I went by yesterday, and there was an even bigger crowd. It was a bigger crowd than what you see on actual election day.

    • Let’s hope it is good news . Historically .,,high turnout favors the Democrats.
      Need all that silent majority to get out and vote.
      Don’t assume things are won or lost… vote!

      • I live in a very red district.

        Meanwhile:
        The nomination is expected to clear a final procedural vote on Sunday, and Judge Barrett is expected to be confirmed on Monday. Republicans control the Senate 53-47, and the vote is expected to be almost entirely along party lines.

        • Do you live in Virginia?

          This story is what I expected for Virginia. The Richmond Times Dispatch, Virginia Pilot, and Roanoke Times all have stories like this since July.

          Citing Police Data; the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of those Background Checks are First Time Gun Buyers……who are OVERWHELMINGLY Minority Residents……….from…..Northern Virginia

    • I believe the biggest reason the democrats were pushing early voting was because the Leadership knew how weak a Cant I Date “Sleepy Joe” was and the fact they also knew the Hunter corruption scandal was going to be the October Surprise released by the DOJ. They wanted to get as many votes in the boxes as possible before the voters could change their minds. Now even Kameltoe doesn’t know what city she is in. How the Hell could someone not know they’re in Cleveland. I wonder if all the “Lids” the campaign is putting on things has more to do with what they’re smoking rather than what they’re doing.

  9. The “threat” of new gun laws certainly drive sales. If and when new gun laws become more than a threat, I wonder what our response will be.

    2A is supposed to protect us from government overreach. It doesn’t. What protects us from government overreach are men who are willing to use their power.

    • The “threat” of new gun laws certainly drive sales…except in California, it would seem. According to an article here a few days back, only 110,000 Californians have bought guns since the onset of the pandemic. Bunch of wankers we are. I guess we are inured to new guns laws (that most probably know nothing about.)

  10. Next month we’ll get either protests or celebrations no matter what happens. November will be a bitch.

    • Not looking forward to NYC/Rochester/Albany if Trump wins…………not really looking forward to those areas if he loses either but it would take longer for them to implode. That aside still voting Trump and stacking more supplies.

    • There will be violence and celebration no matter who wins. If Biden wins, the Left celebrates and gets a head start on four years of brownshirting. If Trump wins, we celebrate and the Left gets (even more) violent.

    • I can only foresee violence no matter who the winner is. If Trump wins, the violence will be immediate; if the Harris/Biden ticket wins, the violence will be delayed until the Dems start pushing their leftist policies down our throats.

    • In a recent poll (about a week ago) close to 3/4 of all voters (both parties) expected violence after the election. That number is high enough to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

      • This is one of those things where you have to consider that these days the sample is almost always self-selected in these surveys. It’s the people willing to answer the questions you ask. That sample size has changed drastically in the last few decades and it makes the whole thing a lot harder. Then of course there’s the people that lie to you.

        The one that stands out to me is from several weeks back because it was done very specifically for Sam’s and Costco. Now, it intrinsically does have the same sort of issues but it’s worth noting that “shopper’s surveys” (a general term for this kind of thing) tend to be far, far more accurate than political polling because a wider array of people are willing to answer what they perceive as “helpful questions to make your shopping experience better” and because they perceive the whole thing as non-partisan as opposed to overly political surveys.

        The fact that the latter found 61% believe this is somewhat worrying. And it brings up exactly what you mention here; at what point does this prophecy becomes self-fulfilling?

        This question has actually been studied and the answer is: No one really knows to a level of certainty worth discussing. There are too many external factors that go into the whole thing for a prediction to be made based on public sentiment. Rather, historically, your predictors are obvious events such as assassinations, food shortages and some other factors such as simmering class, religious, tribal or other affiliation conflict.

        So, yeah, it’s worrisome to some degree but there is still the possible to avoid a serious problem. That would be preferable. The thing that worries me, as I’ve said for some time, is that it appears that the adults on every side of the discussion have essentially left the room (if they were ever there in the first place, which Hayek’s work suggests they may not have been).

        To shorten things considerably here:

        The real danger in all of this IMHO is that people fail, generally, to make a distinction between anger and disgust. The latter is a far more dangerous thought pattern. Instead of a conflict that can be mediated or maybe ends quickly as costs pile up, instead this tends to lead to far worse outcomes like genocide because disgust seems to be tied to feelings we have on cleanliness and disease/disease vectors. And what do we do with something like, say, blankets covered in smallpox or a bag of biohazardous waste? We burn them. Not just because it’s effective but because it seems to be hardwired into us to do this. There are historical examples of taking people who were diseased, sealing them in their house and lighting the structure on fire. You see the beginnings of this with the Quaker hangings in Boston too. The Puritans were flat out disgusted by the presence of Quakers. It took the King quite a lot of serious work to put an end to that shit.

        In short, this is an extremely dangerous mental program to “open” in regards to other people. Hitler did that. Stalin did it. Idi Amin, Mao and Pol Pot did it. It doesn’t end well because one that “program” gets activated it tends to run until either the side feeling it is satisfied that the “job” is done or there are no longer enough of them to get the “job” done and it must necessarily end.

        Unfortunately with all of what we know we don’t actually have a metric for “disgust” in terms of our political system that we can use to measure such a feeling reliably. Anecdotally I can tell you that this feeling is present and runs deep in certain circles at the far sides of either political party but how widespread is it? That’s unknown. What is known for certain is that this type of thinking has 1) been encouraged in recent years, A LOT, and 2) it’s extremely dangerous. How many people “bought in”? That’s an open question because, really, no one has bothered to look into it.

        I had a *cough* conversation *cough* with someone about this here the other day and perhaps I just didn’t explain it very well.

        The problem is that once this particular version of Pandora’s Box is opened it’s nearly impossible to close without enormous bloodshed. The question isn’t if large numbers of people will die but rather which people will die. If one side is sufficiently disgusted with the existence of the other to the point that they’re willing to cross the Rubicon and start “killing fields” or “purges” then we have a damned difficult thing to stop. These are the kind of feelings that drove the Eastern Front during WWII and the Russians had to kill about 5.1 million attackers to halt this kind of behavior, and the Russians lost 8.5+ million of their own to do it.

        If that happens in this country then we are faced with a very undesirable set of choices. *They* (whoever does this kind of thing first) will not stop until they are stopped and they will breed disgust on the other side. This rapidly turns into atrocity Tuesdays on both sides. Which means that effectively we have three choices.

        1) We can stand back and just let the side that starts it have at it until they’re done, which won’t happen because such behavior breeds retaliation. We end up like Syria or Algeria. A very long, very bloody war with barbaric behavior all around.

        2) We step in and stop it before it goes too far. Put the rabid dog down. This is hard because it means targeting a group for mass extermination based on their current behavior and the counter-strike must be complete enough on the first pass to eliminate them. This is horrible to contemplate but the alternatives are actually worse.

        3) The rest of us can run away and let whoever wants to “step in the arena” do so. Again, you get Syria or Algeria.

        This is what I have been discussing, in a round about way because it requires quite a bit of background to actually understand, for years. Few people have listened mostly because what I’m talking about is something they don’t want to contemplate. They either ignore it or they accuse me of actually wanting such bloody outcomes because they’re cool and I’m of the age that I probably play video games and don’t “get” reality.

        No. It is they who don’t get reality. I have no interest in having a Uganda on US soil but burying our heads in the sand, as we have done for decades at this point, is exactly how you get that undesirable outcome and are forced to pick between a set of truly awful choices where there really is no moral answer and you’re forced to fight fire with fire. And now we may be standing on the edge of that abyss. And I wish I’d listened to the warnings earlier so that I could have passed them on earlier and maybe argued that we needed to look at all the potential dangers and really work to assess them better years ago. But that’s the past.

        The question people need to ask themselves now is what the actual fuck are we going to do about this situation? The sky is not falling and nothing is inevitable at this point but the statistics get worse the less we’re willing to coldly and dispassionately look at the reality before us. You can’t fix or avoid problems you refuse to admit exist in the first place.

        Even if we get past this one we have big problems that we’ve kicked the can down the road on for decades and the Cov-2 situation exacerbated them enormously. They’ve created secondary and tertiary problems all their own too.

        And again, all is not lost. There is a way out, it’s through. That sucks to some degree but it’s also great news. However, much work is needed along with discipline and a shitload of actual thinking and understanding of the real issues that have formed this giant knot we have to deal with. Unfortunately even discussing the problems in an adult way is difficult because they’re scary and they undermine what people want to believe.

        • Thank you for putting that into words, you’ve written something I’ve been thinking about lately, a lot, and have been able to articulate it into a neatly fit text as you have done.

          I love history and I’m quite well read on the eastern front of WW2, and I think you got it 100% right. There’s A TON of similarities in the mentality leading into this coming conflict. It also reminds me of the Yugoslavia conflicts of the 90s. That very brutal mentality the Eastern Europe nations have when they go to war seems to have fomented here.

          What I also see, is it seems that Nazi concept of “Blood and Soil”, seems to be fomenting too, especially on the left. The left would never call it “blood and soil”, of course, but their mentality of exterminating of the right and replacing them with leftists is essentially the exact Nazi plan for the vast Russian steppe. On the right there’s sort of a mentality to cleanse the cities but it honestly is not a big or as fierce as the lefts blood and soil cries.

          But anyway, I see exactly what you are saying, but unfortunately I don’t see a way to turn it off at this point, barring some major foreign event like a war with China or something.

        • The way to stop it is to make it very clear that it will not be tolerated and to come down on those who engage in the behavior with the proverbial Hand of God.

          That’s what the King had to do in relation to the Quaker/Puritan thing. It was a lot of work but it prevented mass bloodshed. Hard work and it required a clear eye as to what was actually going on.

          I think we still have that opportunity. But we will lose that opportunity if we let either side open up “killing fields” because that will start a cycle you really don’t want to see get kicked off.

          Frankly, I think the people talking about this in abhorrent ways are a vanishingly small minority and I think there’s at least good anecdotal evidence of that in the way that, say, ANTIFA appears to currently be spread too thin to muster major riots all over the country.

          The season also helps. In a way having our elections in the winter was a stroke of genius.

      • “The real danger in all of this IMHO is that people fail, generally, to make a distinction between anger and disgust. The latter is a far more dangerous thought pattern.”

        Whoa, that’s seriously heavy.

        What you tag as ‘disgust’ I’m seeing as contempt. As in, there is no place for them in a ‘civilized’ society, and something needs to be done with them who refuse to go along with the ‘Progressive’ program.

        “”Lizard Brains”: NBC Analyst Meacham Attacks Trump Supporters Functioning On Primitive Limbic Systems”

        https://www.zerohedge.com/political/lizard-brains-nbc-analyst-meacham-attacks-trump-supporters-functioning-primitive-limbic

        De-humanization. A useful tool in the toolbox when someone decides ghastly things need to happen.

        I’m curious, are the folks you’re in contact with still believe Biden will lose?

        Because if Trump wins, some of them will snap like a rubber band. And if Biden wins, they will be very interested in punishing those that supported him…

        • Mostly the serious people I know on the subject of Biden put his chances of winning at around 10% at best and that’s pre-Hunter-laptop-fiasco. Serious state level polling isn’t looking good for Biden and there’s ample reason to believe that there’s a substantial “shy Trump voter” population out there. Trafalger group has been decent at finding such groups in the past and they’re an inch away from essentially calling the election for Trump based on their work in SC, FL, MI, WI, PA, OH, and MN. Those polls are all sliding in Trump’s direction even in oversampled polls that heavily favor Biden. Rasmussen even has Trump at +1 nationally and that’s also pre-laptop.
          ==================
          I would also note that in terms of clinical psychology there’s a difference between “disgust” and “contempt”. They are actually quite different. A gory wound is something people think to be “disgusting” they don’t find it “contemptable”. One of these things needs be cleaned. And that’s the impulse that leads to flat out genocide.

          What I’m specifically talking about is a feeling people would feel specifically towards say… a nasty infection eating part of someone, that is, a necrotic wound. It produces a impulse in many people to recoil in horror from the disease/injury.

          What drove people to bind someone in a house and light the structure on fire was a disgust for them as a vector of disease not a feeling of contempt for them as a person or even sub-human.

          Yes, dehumanizing efforts are common and they are dangerous but they’re also subject to discipline in a way that our feelings towards something like leprosy are not. The feeling of disgust essentially erases all vestiges of connection to the person in a way that, really, nothing else can. This is thought to be a hard-wired evolutionary “program” to protect us from communicable diseases and the vectors for them. It also appears to be linked to a particularly vicious form of tribalism.

          And if you think about that it kinda makes sense. I mean the Spanish didn’t have to really go to war with the Native Americans. In 30 years most of the Natives were dead from Measles, Smallpox and Mumps. Any time two distinct populations meet and swap pathogens it’s not going to work out well for at least one of them.

  11. Lets hope for a backlash in votes also. I cant say I’m too optimistic because liberals multiply like roaches in Virginia cities but there is a small chance of a turn around.

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