Maarja Nuut :Avant-Garde Fiddle from Estonia

MAARJA NUUT

Une Meeles

www.maarjanuut.com

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Estonia is a Baltic nation that isn't Scandinavian, but has been controlled by Danes and Swedes (as well as Russia). At times its wild keening vocals sound Balkan, but they're not. At times, the exuberance of fiddlers such as Maarja Nuut sounds Finnish, though that's incidental and the only thing really Finnish about Estonians is that they share common language roots. Why the geography lesson? Because Maarja Nuut's music is hard to pin down; it will remind you of lots of things, without really being any of them. Especially given the fact that her tastes run more toward the avant-garde than the folk wellspring. Consider, for instance, a song titled "Kiik Tabab Kindaid," which translates "The Swing Wants Mittens." A lot of fiddle tunes have odd names, but this one personifies the swing, muses on marriage, and the composition unfolds beneath, then above, a field recording of humming cellphone cables. Nutt's strings squeal in resonance with the cables, then drop to a drone to accompany primal vocals. Memo: This is not for die-hard traditionalists.

At every step of the way Nuut challenges, pushes sonic borders, and at times begs the question: What is music? "Kargus" opens to a saw-like barrage of notes that reduce in volume and become something that sounds to my ear like a drone/triplet hybrid. Nutt this time uses a light melodic voice to add contrast. "Sammud" is a waltz, but one looped to body moment and the tune's namesake "Footsteps." Add some plucked notes and we hear scraping and tapping feet, a 1-2-3 cadence, and a lovely little melody all at once. The effect is hypnotic. It's oddly delicate, as opposed to the free-spirited and wilder feel of "Kuradipolka" ("The Devil's Polka").  It too has a repeating thread of notes, but these serve to fray the tune rather than unify it. High notes drift to the edge of our aural comfort zone and then the entire piece ends abruptly. Or would you prefer some unbridled village-like rapid-fire vocalizations and some clip-clop percussion? Check out "Hobusemäng" ("The Horse Game"), which apparently is a variation of a ritual game linked to casting spells. In other words, Maarja Nuut's music is a flight into places where reality, magic, experimentation, programming, and dreams collide–appropriate for a project whose Estonian title means "In the Hold of a Dream." Like most avant-garde projects, this one will confuse some listeners and induce wonder in others. Place me in the second camp. 

Here's a YouTube sampler of this unusual artist.

Rob Weir

Guns and Congress; Special Report

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Making America Safe:

What will it take?

The question has been on the lips of rational people even before Sandy Hook, and has turned into an angry finger-pointing scream since Orlando: What will it take to make America safe? You won't like the answer, but given that commonsense, community spirit, and basic decency jumped the shark decades ago, it seems pretty obvious: more bloodshed.

I don't mean another Orlando-style mass slaying; events such as that have become so routine that we're numb to them. The blood that will have to spill is that of Republican members of Congress and their loved ones. Let me be unambiguously clear. I am a man of peace. Not only do I not possess a firearm, I've never held or fired one. I do not advocate or condone violence against anyone. But if you ask me what it will take, my answer stands.

How can I say such a horrible thing? Because Republicans in Congress are so unspeakably out of touch with ordinary Americans as to reside in an alternate reality. They are content to take campaign contributions from the Nazi Rifle Association because America's mean streets are walled off from their gated communities. Violence is a mere abstraction and has largely been so since World War Two. Republicans don't care that you and your kids go to war abroad and return to battle at home, because they and theirs don't experience the consequences of those wars.

It's no leap of logic to connect foreign and domestic wars. Try to find the name of the last child of a member of Congress killed in combat. His name was Larry McDonald and he died in French Indochina in 1945. Looking for the last sitting U.S. Congressman killed in military action? Senator Edward Baker of Oregon, October of 1861 in Virginia, during the Civil War. Know how many sons of U.S. Senators served in a unit anywhere near combat during the Vietnam War? Just one, and his name was Albert Gore Jr. Dead or wounded? One. Representative's son suffered a leg wound.

No wonder members of Congress so blithely send your sons (and daughters) to dangerous places—it's not like it touches them. When George W. Bush managed to prove he is an absolute fool by starting a conflict even dumber than the Vietnam War, only seven members of Congress had children in the military and only Senator Tim Johnson (D, SD) had a son in a dangerous situation.

As for the war on American streets, cirrhosis of the liver is more likely to wipe out an NRA-funded Congressman than the bullets they'd put into gumball machines if the NRA commanded them to do so. Gabby Giffords was gunned down and survived in 2011, but who counts liberals like she? Prior to that, you have to go back to Senator John Stennis, shot twice by muggers in 1973, for the last attack on a Congressional member. The last member of Congress killed on American soil was Senator Robert Kennedy in 1968. Since then, two others have died abroad–Representative Larry McDonald (D, GA) was aboard a Korean Airlines flight shot down by the Soviets in 1983, and Representative Leo Ryan (D, CA) died in the Jonestown massacre in 1978.

The NRA doesn't like to talk about the fact that the politicians it buys are in greater danger from hunting with Dick Cheney than from anything happening outside their protective bubbles. And it surely doesn't want you to know about Representative Jackie Speir (D, CA) who was with Leo Ryan in 1978, and survived being shot. She's been a gun control advocate ever since. Of course, President Reagan took a bullet in 1981, but do Republicans tell you that he supported the Brady Bill, or that he embraced moderate gun control after leaving office? The NRA will never tell you that it supported California's new gun control law in 1967, after armed Black Panthers marched into the California legislature. Or that the signature on that law belongs to a Republican: Governor Ronald Reagan.

Read all about it on this blog. Republicans won't tell you any of this. They don't care. Why should they? It has nothing to do with Congressional members or their children. It sickens me to say it, but I suspect only one thing will make Congress care: the pain of loss.

Cameron Johnson, Brooke Annibale, Keith Sykes, The Baboons

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Looking for some gristle and muscle? Try Rogers, Arkansas-based Cameron Johnson, whose Stack Your Stones EP lifts a few boulders. He's a man with a rich baritone voice, an acoustic guitar, and flair for telling tales about people who may or may not be making bad decisions. Give him a percussionist, a bass player with the chops of Brad Berge, soulful backup singers like Angel Snow and Marcia Ware, and crank up the down-and-dirty. Berge's bass is so heavy on "Til I Can't Anymore" that it's like a bump-and-grind at a biker bar. "Crooked Bangs," which generated some online buzz, features  Johnson's wry commentary and sense of country rock blues. It's about a man hell-bent for a woman from whom he knows he ought to walk away. How about this line: She drinks like Hemingway on a Tuesday night. It begins with some off-kilter beats akin to a Suitcase Junket setup, and then evolves into something reminiscent of a 40s-style string combo. I was amazed by the diversity of the EP's six tracks. "On My Own" is rootsy, but  has muscular kitchen-sink jumps with a bit of everything thrown in the mix: drums that thump and crash, pulsing strings, gritty vocal, meaty bass lines…. But then there's "In The Winter Time," a sensitive love song in which his voice is a cross between John Gorka and Ari Hest; and "Too Long," with a folk rock groove á la Jackson Browne. And Johnson must  get "Mannequin with aMegaphone" out there. It's the perfect song for desultory Election 2016, with cynicism oozing from every pore. He's like a bluesy, latter-day Rudy Vallee as he croons lines about mannequin-like mass-produced candidates. I'm totally stealing his line: You're playing us like we're the media's fool/Go ahead and talk all you want, but you ain't getting through. Right on, bro—but your music got through loud and clear.

Some singers make you quake and some make you ache; Brooke Annibale is one of the latter. This Nashville-based Pittsburgh native has released 4 LPs and 2 EPs since 2005 and NoiseTrade is offering a collection called Retrospective for those unfamiliar with her. You may have heard her and not realized you have, as some of her songs have ended up on TV soundtracks, including "Silence WorthBreaking," which was used on ABC's "Pretty Little Liars." Annibale has a light, classically pretty voice, which is to say she's not a diva who is going to make you bolt upright. "Silence Worth Breaking" unfolds to bell-like tones. It, like all her songs, is polished, atmospheric, and well crafted. The only open question is whether or not you like this sort of treatment. My tastes run simpler, and I found some of her songs bathed in too much production. Retrospective contains two versions of "Remind Me," the first from her latest studio album The Simple Fear (2015) in which her voice mostly ornaments a thick mix. Pleasant enough, but I found the live acoustic version to be more honest and personal. A lot of her songs are about being in or out of love, so I need to hear the emotion in the voice if you want me to believe lyrics such as: just stop/connecting every dot/gave it everything I've got/we were nothing like I thought. But this is, as stated, my preference. Give a listen and see what you think.

Does the name Keith Sykes ring a bell? He's a singer/songwriter, though the emphasis is heavier on the second. More than a hundred of his offerings have been recorded, from artists ranging from Rosanne Cash and George Thorogood to Jimmy Buffett. Do you know Buffett's "Coast of Marseilles?" That's one of Sykes' tunes, an acoustic version of which you can hear on his EP Songs From a Little Beach Town (KSM Entertainment). It's six good time, easy-living songs in the country/folk/blues spirit of artists such as Buffett, of whose Coral Reefer Band Sykes was once a member. The EP opens with "Come as You Are Beach Bar," a tribute to a dive allegedly somewhere on the coast of Texas, and ends with the tongue-in-cheek "Drive Myself  to Drinking." The latter is a hilarious idea: a jilted man decides to indulge in self-destructive behavior without actually becoming self-destructive: Gonna build me a bar in the back of my car/And drive myself to drinkin' but he's not planning on putting the key into the ignition!

There are legions of Latin dance bands and it's a buyers' market as most of them are pretty much the same. I had high hopes for Spanglish (Syncopated Sounds) by The Baboons. As the title suggests, there are Spanish and English offerings, as befits a band based in Miami (and not to be confused with the Belgian rock band of that name, or Baboon, a Texas R & R outfit). Spanglish hits high notes when guitarist Isaac Rodriguez cuts loose and the brass gets funky behind him. Were there more of this I'd be happier. Lead vocalist Majica has a strong voice as well, but too much of this release falls into the same sold/same old dance groove. If you want to dance, by all means buy this. Beware, though: in the car it seems more of a pedestrian stroll than a sweaty samba.

Rob Weir

The Chimes a Wondrous Work for Serious Readers

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THE CHIMES (2015/16)

Anna Smaill

Sceptre, 289 pages

* * * * *

The Chimes is far more than an impressive debut; it’s a work of genius. Beware, this is serious literature. It’s a slim volume, but it’s neither an easy nor a breezy read. Anna Smaill, a New Zealand poet and classical violinist, dares to challenge readers and trusts they are smart enough to fill the voids. She also trusts them to do their homework, so don't expect to be spoon-fed. Unless you are well grounded in music theory, keep your smart phone handy with a dictionary bookmarked. Smaill establishes an alternative universe—a time-indeterminate dystopia—that reveals its details in clues and individual notes, not in fell swoops or hummable pop melodies.

If you’re wondering what’s up with the music references, ponder this question: Who says communication must be based upon printed or spoken words? The Chimes takes place in England, after an event known as Allbreaking, which might have extinguished society had not a mysterious cadre known as The Order vanquished mayhem and reinstituted its namesake social organization. The Order is robed and quasi-religious in its discipline, but with a twist: they are master musicians. As such, music has replaced written language, and solfege–look it up as you’ll need to know what it means—has become the primary form of communication. It has, in fact, become the only true way of obtaining information as each day is punctuated by The Chimes, a time in which music wafts across the land. The next day citizens awake with no memory of the past; they carry small bags filled with “memoryobjects,” personal tokens that give them just enough hints about their identities to function. What has happened? What is this new world like? How can a society based upon music sustain itself? Is something sinister about the official narrative ("onestory")?  

You’ll need to be patient. There are no Sherlock Holmes-like ah-ha summations. The story arc of this dramatic thriller is linked to two young men, charismatic Lucien and perplexed Simon, and its notes begin to take shape when Simon arrives in London after his parents’ deaths—presumably to apprentice himself to an instrument maker. Instead, he finds himself along the Thames with Lucien and three other “pactrunners” sifting through the river muck and running full bore through pitch-black drainage tunnels using solfege to locate themselves and find the way back to their shelter. What’s the purpose of this and who is “The Lady” constantly referenced? What does it matter if the next morning one doesn’t recall? But what if there are those with the ability to retain memories? Is that a good or a bad thing? And who says music has to be benign?

The Chimes has a bit of everything, except birds. (You’ll find out why there are no birds.) There are secret cadres, chases, mysteries, secrets, plots and subplots. I was, at times, reminded of The Name of the Rose in the way in which symbols are manipulated, how secret languages—musical in this case—convey meaning, and how each character’s motives are ambiguous and we can’t immediately tell if that’s because they are clueless or have ulterior agendas. There’s even a medieval ambience, if you can conjure one with dashes of Mad Max and The Navigator mixed in.

Smaill’s prose is nuanced, complex, and eloquent. I adored this book and was grateful for a work that stretched me. Many readers will feel lost for the first hundred pages or so, but think of The Chimes as you might a complicated jigsaw puzzle in which it takes time for images to emerge once the preliminary straight edges are locked in place. Once you finish the novel, the picture before you will be unlike any others you will assemble this reading year. One of the book’s subplots involves searching for silver and palladium, but my take is that The Chimes is pure gold.  Rob Weir   

 

The Lobster: Is it Brilliant or a Mess?

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THE LOBSTER (2016 US Release)

Directed by Yorgos Lanithimos

A24, 119 minutes, R [Sexuality, language, animal cruelty]

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I often leave the cinema without a completely formed opinion about the movie I've just seen. Sometimes a provocative film needs 24-48 hours to marinate before I fully appreciate its nuances and complexities. It’s rare, though, that more than a week later I’m still not sure if I actually liked a movie. You can toss The Lobster into that sparsely populated tank. It might be brilliant. It might be rotted seafood disguised in a visually appealing casserole. I suspect it’s actually just a middling film—hence my rating—but I could be talked into a higher or lower rating. The only thing of which I am 100% certain is that if you are the sort of person who gets deeply disturbed by cruelty to animals and images thereof, you should give The Lobster a wide berth.

This film stars Colin Farrell as you’ve never seen him before: pot-bellied, laconic, and passive. It is set in a future dystopia. Or is it a perverse nuclear family utopia? Society requires adults to live as couples, with the added proviso that the couples must have aligning characteristics. John C. Reilly, for instance plays the role of Lisping Man (no one except Farrell has a name) and must find a soul-mate who shares that impediment. What about those without partners? That’s the dystopian angle and the dilemma facing David (Farrell). He is unexpectedly single because his wife left him for another man. By law, single people must check into a sanitarium-like facility, where they have 45 days to find a new partner or they are surgically transformed into an animal of their choice. David arrives with a dog in tow that is actually his brother Roger. Should David fail to find a near-sighted person such as himself, we will become a lobster!

Okay, that’s deliciously weird and surreal, as are some of the rituals of the hotel. Residents must sit through insipid skits purporting to show the virtues of couples and the dangers of being alone that, I suspect, are intended as barbed commentary on the banality of the Religious Right. Even weirder, the facility forbids masturbation, but requires males to be sexually stimulated by a maid, but not to orgasm. The place is crawling with desperate people like Limping Man (Ben Wishaw) and Nose-Bleed Woman (Jessica Barden). David finds himself stalked by the frumpy Biscuit Woman (Ashley Jensen), but he’s so hollowed out from being cuckolded that he gravitates toward Heartless Woman (Angelika Papoulia).

The film never fully explains how society came to be this way or who is in charge, but, as convention dictates, an authoritarian state begets an underground resistance movement. In this case, it is the Loners, a loose band living in the woods that swings entirely the other direction by demanding solitude, and forbidding any sort of intimacy or coupling. Léa Seydoux is the Loner Leader—a droll oxymoron—and she plays the part with icy intensity and a detached willingness to impose barbaric penalties for those who break the band's code. David escapes to join the Loners, but how will he respond when he meets Short-Sighted Woman (Rachel Weisz)? The film ends on a Lovecraft-like note that is terrifying in its ambiguity.

Sounds intriguing, yes? And so it is, though whether this is a great film is less certain. This is the first English-language project for Greek director Yorgos Lanithimos, who has done a decent job, though I constantly wondered what Joel and Ethan Coen would have done with the same material. (I also thought of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, whose Delicatessen is a spiritual cousin.) The Lobster is an Irish, English, Greek, French, Dutch joint venture–ironic in that some of my reservations lay with the manner in which the film flirts with several moods/genres without being fully any of them: black comedy, surrealism, social commentary, romance, tragedy. I admired its ambitiousness, its ambiguities, and its artistry, but I remain uncertain as to whether it’s a brilliant pastiche or a failed synthesis. I highly suspect the latter but, like I said, I could be persuaded otherwise.

Rob Weir

Postscript: The British Academy honored Olivia Coleman with a Best Supporting Actress prize for her role as the sanitarium manager. This is puzzling, as her role was relatively minor and Seydoux, Papoulia, and Jensen are each more deserving.

Avenue of Mysteries Elides Past and Present

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AVENUE OF MYSTERIES (2015)

By John Irving

Simon & Schuster, 440 pages

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In Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut wrote the memorable line, "Billy Pilgrim became unstuck in time." That's also the fate of Juan Diego Guerrero in John Irving's latest novel, Avenue of Mysteries. He's a 54-year-old famous novelist winging his way to the Philippines, but his past and present have become so intertwined that he's not entirely certain about the latter and neither should you, the reader, necessarily hew to literal readings of the here and now. The past appears in sharper detail, but it too skirts the borders between the real, surreal, miraculous, and imagined.

Forty years earlier, voracious reader Juan Diego was among los niños de la basura, a resident of Oaxaca's city dump. He is a club-footed fourteen when we meet him, and lives with his 13-year-old sister, Lupe, also prescient, though only Juan Diego can understand what she's saying. Their mother Esperanza, is a devout Catholic who also happens to be a prostitute. They sometimes live with Rivera, who is the boss of the dump, and perhaps the father of both children and their benefactor. Juan Diego's world is defined by priests, nuns, and street people; his daily routine by scavenging, hustling, hanging out with a drug-addled American hippie avoiding the Vietnam War, and rescuing discarded books about to be burned in the dump along with garbage, dead dogs, and the occasional corpse. Juan Diego reads everything–from discarded tomes of theology to pulp fiction­–and has become as proficient in English as he is in Spanish and whatever odd dialect Lupe speaks. Are both children milagros (miracles), as some local Jesuits suspect, or just precocious kids with poor life chances made worse when Esperanza dies dusting La Virgen de la Soledad?  

If you know anything about John Irving, you know he is a skilled plotsman and nothing is ever thrown away. Juan Diego is named for the Mexico City peasant boy to whom the Virgin Mary allegedly appeared in 1531. His sister is named for the Virgin of Guadalupe, the darker-skinned form Mary supposedly took in 1531. There's also another character named Soledad, and two others–  novitiate Edward "Eduardo" Bonshaw and novelist Clark French, Juan Diego's former protégé–that share a penchant for austere Catholicism (though Eduardo transforms and Clark never does). Juan Diego's journey toward world citizenship begins with the deaths of Esperanza and the American hippie, and his sister's insistence that their mother's demise was at the intervention of "Monster Mary," her name for Soledad. (Lupe is devoted to Guadalupe, and her revenge on Monster Mary is unique, to say the least.) Both children are sent off to the local circus, the best fate the Jesuits can imagine for dump kids. Lupe can read minds and interpret the past with great accuracy, though her predictive skills are less reliable. Since only Juan Diego can interpret what she says, he goes as well. So let's add some dwarfs, aerial artists, dog trainers, a transvestite, and a pedophile lion tamer to the mix, shall we? 

If it already sounds like too much, before we're through we'll also get an Iowa coming-of-age, gay parents, AIDS, novel plots within the novel, heart troubles, and that trip to the Philippines—made simply because of a promise 14-year-old Juan Diego made to the dying hippie. On the trip Juan Diego sleeps with Miriam and Dorothy, a mother-daughter combo. Or does he? Are they real? Succubi? Hallucinations from drug misuse?

It's important to remember that few authors this side of Dickens are such expert craftsmen. This is to say that most things will make some sort of sense if you stay with them. Avenue of Mysteries is sprawling and, at times a bit over the top. Irving certainly opens himself to charges of being a 74-year-old with the sensibilities of a horny adolescent, but I applaud him for trying something different. He's also vulnerable to the criticism of being another gringo aiming for magical realism and falling a bit short, but I'm seldom bothered by ambiguity and I think those critics miss the idea that his character, Juan Diego, wishes to dispel expectations of what a Mexican writer is like. In many ways, Avenue of Mysteries* is a musing on rationalism and faith, desire and duty, and body and spirit. I've yet to run across someone who has resolved these–and that includes the Catholic Church! I see this book as the successful realization of Irving's 1994 A Son of the Circus, which he thought brilliant and most of the reading public found a failed, unfathomable mess. Call this one a Mexican Junkyard Dog with more depth.

Rob Weir

*The title refers to a Mexico City street leading up to the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Lupe venerates her, but is appalled by the commercialism, misguided faith, and hucksterism associated with the basilica. I've not been there, but this is exactly what I felt when visiting Fatima, Portugal—simply one of the least sacred places I've ever had the displeasure of seeing.

Your Guns Violate My Freedom

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My wife was once pulled over for driving 38 in a 30 mph zone, despite the tailback of disgruntled drivers lusting to pass her. She contested the ticket and got off with a warning. Its gist was: we will waive the ticket this time, but you were in violation.

This isn't a piece about driving; it's about the (Ho hum!) latest bit of senseless American bloodshed: the massacre in Orlando. I'm sick of listening to excuses from gun advocates and the fascist NRA about why we can't limit gun access. Their arguments are as tiresome as the postmortem homilies, sprays of flowers, and on-site Teddy Bear dumps that occur every time a mass murder occurs. That's quite often, actually. In 2015, nearly 13,000 Americans were murdered and another 84,000 were shot but survived. Enough already! All the post-tragedy hoopla has become as boring—yes, I said boring–as the pathetic whining of Second Amendment Warriors (whom, I might add, are often the same crowd that disrespect everything else about the U.S. Constitution except the 10^th Amendment.)

I've had it with your tiresome insistence upon your right to own an Uzi. It violates my right to have a safe community that's reasonably free of psychos with mail-order guns and large clips of ammo. And let's get it straight: you don't have the right to demand no gun control any more than I have to demand total gun control. The United States is founded upon three concepts and you don't get to choose just one. Liberty refers to certain political rights guaranteed to individuals akin to those in the First and Second Amendments. Freedom, however, is liberty's handmaiden, not its synonym. It does not refer to your rights, rather those to which all citizens collectively and communally are entitled. Freedom places restrictions upon liberty, which should more properly be viewed as the freedom to move within a framework of—breathe deeply—limits. Your First Amendment right to free speech is no defense for violating public safety laws, hate speech ordinances, or public order; neither will your freedom of religion right allow you to practice violent jihad, engage in "honor" killings, bomb an abortion clinic, or declare holy war against infidels.

Now it's time for liberals to breathe deeply: you cannot ban all guns unless the Second Amendment is repealed. A better tactic is to insist upon limits to the Second Amendment analogous to those placed upon the First.  It begins with calling out the tiresome rants of the NRA and their kneejerk groupies as violations of American freedom injurious to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Third concept: democracy, the direct action of the electorate in electing officials and influencing public policy. According to the New York Daily News—hardly a bastion of liberalism—80% of Americans favor tougher gun control. My reference to a fascist NRA is not overblown. It's a self-serving militaristic cadre holding the nation hostage to a rigid extremist ideology–defining characteristics of fascism.

Just stop with the trite stuff. No—you don't need automatic weapons to protect your family: a handgun will do the job. The most verifiable stats claim around 280 yearly home attacks thwarted by guns. Few of these potential attacks were random and most occurred in high-crime neighborhoods, but no matter—a fool using an automatic multi-round weapon in his own home is as likely to kill his family as the intruder. A handgun will suffice.

There is zero reason for an individual to have multi-clip, multi-round weapons. Let's cut the BS: the sole purpose of automatic and semi-automatic high-capacity weapons is to commit mass destruction. No one outside of the US military–not even cops–should have such weapons. If you've got a gun fetish, admit it, and let's do what is done in civilized nations: you can own the gun, but you can't buy ammo for it. When you want to fire it, you go to a licensed range where you are issued ammo and must account for each round. Put away that "What about hunters?" malarkey; using such a gun isn't sport, it's senseless slaughter.

There is also no reason to allow guns or ammo to be purchased by mail, over the Internet, at fly-by-night gun shows, or without thorough background checks. These blood-soaked businesses must be shut down. If you can't haul your sorry ass down to Walmart to buy ammo and undergo security checks, you can go without. And you only get one box at a time. No excuses. In a rational society, Omar Mateen isn't sold a gun under any circumstance.

But STFU about terrorists. The NRA is already playing the ISIS card to explain Orlando. Of course, it said nothing when a few months ago some guy blew away a few Muslims in California. But here's why you don't want to go that route. When 9/11 occurred, the response was to set up a national security state. Well we commit four plus 9/11s every year in gun homicides (and three per month if we include all victims), so how do you feel about a national gun control state? I doubt many are comfortable with the idea of America as one big airport in which there are security lines, metal detectors, body scanners, and pat downs everywhere.

Finally, how about a realistic national dialogue about the sort of country in which we want to live? The NRA insists there is "no evidence" that gun control works. Rubbish! It always dodges the simple fact that other democracies don't have comparable levels of violence. Or worse, it drags out examples of nations with higher murder rates. The USA is a mere 91^st in the world in per capita murders, but just six nations match our sanguinary output (South Africa, Nigeria, Mexico, Venezuela, India, Russia). Percentage-wise, our homicide rate is 3.8 per 100,000. Which groups of peers would your prefer–places such as Congo, Nigeria, Guatemala, and Honduras; or low-homicide nations such as Canada (1.4), New Zealand (0.9), Germany (0.9), or Indonesia (0.5)? How do you feel about the fact that Syria, Libya, and Turkey are way safer than the USA? 

It's time to sacrifice liberty for the freedom to be safe. Of all the arguments against gun control, the ultimate lamest is: "I'm a responsible gun owner so why do I have to suffer because of criminals, thugs, and terrorists?" Here's why: for the same reason you can be pulled over for going 38 in a 30 mph zone. The purpose of law in a civil society is protecting the public from the irresponsible. It's why we have speed limits. Maybe you would drive responsibly without laws limiting your speed, but would you welcome the anarchy of roads without limits or traffic cops? How about eliminating stop-for-school bus laws? Stop on red? Civil society places limits on freedom to curtail our demons so that our better angels can be at liberty. It's high time to exorcise the fascist NRA demons holding angelic liberty hostage.