BushQuotes!

Whoooooooooooooooooops I forgot to do BushQuotes! yesterday, so here are two for the price of one:

Chapter 3, page 34: "Heading toward fall, the campaign [for governor] was building momentum. Then came the photo that went round the world. Me, in blue jeans, khaki shirt, and hunting vest, holding a shotgun in one hand and the wrong bird in the other."

I remember the photo he's referencing, but I couldn't find a copy of it after at least five solid seconds of searching, so please enjoy this classic Bush With Bird image in its stead:


And thus heralds the gun portion of the chapter. Yippee, etc. Privilege and Ammo.

[Content Note: Guns; rape culture.]

Chapter 3, page 35: "Governor Richards had been criticized for vetoing a referendum that would have allowed Texans to express their opinion on a conceal-and-carry law. I argued that Texas should have this law. I knew that many law-abiding citizens, including many women who worked late at night or alone, were carrying weapons to protect themselves."

Conservative politicians always say this: They know shitloads of ladies who are packing heat to defend themselves on the job. But, despite having not a few female friends who are conservative and/or gun owners, including some who have been sexually assaulted (which is the implied crime against which women need to carry weapons to protect themselves), I have never known a woman who routinely carries a weapon. I'm not saying it never happens, and I'm sure some flesh-and-blood women carry weapons for self-defense, but do "many" women not made out of straw really do this? I suspect not.

On the other hand, many (for realz) conservative male politicians argue, without a hint of compunction, that women should be allowed to carry concealed weapons in order that they might defend themselves against rapists, even though a woman is more likely to be raped at gunpoint than successfully use a gun to deter a rapist.

And that's not because women are shrinking violets who can't handle weaponry: It's because women are exponentially more likely to be raped by someone they know, in a familiar space, than by a stranger. And it's not all that easy for any human being to shoot someone they know, even when that person is hurting them.

Women also tend to have some intuitive sense, if they don't explicitly know, that women who use violence to defend themselves are often punished for it. Men like Bush say they want women to defend themselves by any means necessary, but, when it comes right down to it, they don't. It's the same old "he said, she said," except now she's not just "crying rape," as the apologists like to say, but "claiming rape as a justification for hurting an innocent man." See how that works?

There are so many fallacies underlying what a swell idea it is for women to carry concealed weapons. Using women to justify carry-and-conceal laws is audaciously exploitative, and fucking stupid to boot.

[From George Bush's A Charge to Keep, gifted to me by Deeky, because he hates me. In the US, all people who plan to run for president write a shitty book. (Some are less shitty than others, by which I mean the Democrats' books.) A Charge to Keep was George W. Bush's shitty I-wanna-be-president book, published in 1999. I am blogging one random quote per page every day until I have either made my way through the book or lost it behind a couch.]