I do have better things to be doing – household chores, reading a book, staring off into space – than policing you; had I wanted to referee infantile tantrums, I’d have become a preschool teacher. Instead, I became a journalist, and so it is part of my job to maintain a civil atmosphere here.

You clearly know nothing about our business model, of which this blog is only the tiniest part, or about blogs in general. If I were all about page hits, I’d abandon this blog in a flat second and concentrate only on stories. I’ve fought to keep this blog up because I think it’s important for people to have a serious exchange of ideas.

There is nothing I’d like more than for people like you to just go the hell away and let the adults talk, but I try to err on the side of letting people have their say whenever possible. Your “truth to power” is pathetic, yet I’m leaving your post here as a laugh and lesson for everyone else. (Feel free to contact me offline to get the address to which you can mail that c-note, big talker.)

All I’ve seen from you is juvenile insults to other commenters, not to our “infotainment.” But if you don’t like our coverage then tell us why, specifically, without bull—- insults – or just GO AWAY.

Sock puppet if you must, but I’ll delete your posts ad infinitum, and/or just block your entire IP address. Here endeth the lesson; this comment thread is now closed.

Sorry, Josh, but your protests also ring hollow:

“…I have better things to do with my evening than throw a flag…” — and yet you DID, as just witnessed by all.

Ratings apparently DO matter to you — and my reference to “dare take a hit on the ratings on this blog” was apparently enough to make you stop whatever you were involved with, to immediately render an appearance on yonder blog.

God forbid I effectively attack the greatest source of your ratings on this blog — Elwood.

You must know that I can create new aliases ad nauseam so as to continue to speak truth to your power before you cut off access to your sacred blog by any arbitrary “nom-de-plume” — so sooner or later you have to face the music I will keep playing here.

Face the facts, Josh — you (and BANG) are more and more, with each passing day, merely an ever-more ad-bloated “provider of infotainment” than a “purveyor of journalism” as electronic pixelation takes over what Gutenberg started with papyrus and vegetable stains…and I shed not a tear, “dipstick” though I might be to the likes of you.

Blog ratings? In this Facebook-frenzied, hyper-mobilized, latte-per-second, immediate-gratification world? Blog ratings are increasingly the only thing that keeps you able to make your mortgage payment, pal — and we BOTH know THAT.

$100 says you won’t allow this critical (to you) comment to live on your blog for even a mere 24 hours — and I’m a person of my word so if it does, expect a Benjamin in an envelope to be mailed to your office.

There we go again, don’t we, Elwood?

Nothing to say (or that our brain can construct) that can in any way rebut good logic, so we resort to ad hominen attacks – i.e., when we lack the cranial wattage to attack the message, we immediately and slanderously attack the messenger.

I feel sorry for your spouse and children — if by some misfortune there IS a spouse and children — they must suffer mightily every evening at the dinner table once the cumulative drinks kick in.

P.S. to Josh (the Ref) Richman — he (Elwood) started this round of “personal” (aka “not a reference at all to what is or was being said, but merely slander on one’s personal character with innuendo about drug ingestion habits”) attacks with his uncalled-for personal hit at @16, so if you want this kind of personal attack to stop, you know just who to really restrict, that is, if you dare take a hit on the ratings for this blog.

Suppose someone steals your guns in spite of your best efforts to secure them and then uses them in the commission of a crime. Under your proposal you just became an accessory to a crime. Congratulations!

” New York just passed a law that includes provisions dealing with gun trafficking.” Well whoop dee doo! That’ll make everything all better I’m sure. Criminals will be sure to follow the new laws. New York has had some of the toughest gun laws in the country for years with decidedly mixed results. Crime is down in NYC because of stop and frisk which gets the panties of the American Communist Lunatic Union in a major twist.

You’ve been ingesting mind altering substances again haven’t you?

“Perhaps we should outlaw automobiles…”

I think you’re yanking my chain, Elwood. You can’t possibly be in favor of the status quo regarding gun trafficking.

We don’t outlaw automobiles, but we do keep track of them. Nothing in the Constitution prevents us from doing the same with guns. Only NRA-sponsored laws currently on the books do that.

My argument in #12 had nothing to do with outlawing guns, even though I am in favor of at least requiring special licenses for civilian possession of certain types of guns.

I was arguing in favor of cracking down on gun trafficking, and giving law enforcement the tools they need to track down the traffickers and hold them accountable for the crimes that are committed with the guns they sell.

You say what I am proposing will never happen in this country unless martial law is declared. Hmmm. New York just passed a law that includes provisions dealing with gun trafficking. There is also a bipartisan bill in the U.S. House to do the same. It will probably be blocked in the House Judiciary Committee and by the Republican House leadership. But a bipartisan proposal on anything is a remarkable thing in the House these days.

I

Let me interpret what is being said here by Elwood:

The 2nd Amendment guarantees that “my right to own (and use, aka bear) arms (of any kind, even machine guns, bazookas, shoulder-fired stingers, etc.) for whatever hoots and grins it gives me supercedes your right to life, liberty and/or the pursuit of happiness.”

Got it right, Elwood?

Just as the 1st Amendment guarantees that “my right to stand up in a crowded theater and shout ‘Fire!’ for whatever hoots and grins it gives me supercedes your right to life, liberty and/or the pursuit of happiness.” Right, Elwood?

There are no reasonable restrictions whatsoever that can be placed on any of the Amendments that make up the Bill of Rights. Right, Elwood?

Do I have that right, Elwood?

Please let me know in your usual superior fashion if and how I have failed.

Approximately 40,000 people are killed annually in auto accidents in this country.

Perhaps we should outlaw automobiles?

500 people were murdered in Chicago last year. Unfortunately for Ms. Pendleton she was in the wrong place at the wrong time (Chicago, any time).

Fantasy land! Fascist state! Seriously? Are you saying that giving law enforcement the authority and resources to trace guns used in crimes back to the straw buyer death merchants who “legally” buy the guns and illegally sell them to street gangs is somehow usurping the Constitution? Law enforcement does that all the time with motor vehicles involved in crimes.

Last I looked, there had been about 1,300 gun homicides since Sandy Hook. Ah, the price of liberty, I reckon. Unless, of course you’re Hadiya Pendleton, the 15-year-old girl who performed during Obama’s inauguration and was later gunned down while speaking with friends in a Chicago park just one mile from Obama’s house. Where the hell is her “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness?”