#FridayFlashBack to a few of those times I dealt with guns in #BallpointAdventures comics

I've drawn BALLPOINT ADVENTURES comics since the 90s. I've talked about guns in a LOT of strips. This post includes just three of those strips. This first one is from way back in 1999, where I call out a man who shot 25 people, 12 of them dying. It wasn't an extremist thing, Mark O. Barton was probably crazy. Though he did reference religion in a letter he wrote before killing 12 people and then himself.

Click here to see the full-size comic strip!

Next up, we have a comic from October 2015, where I can't even remember what shooting I was reacting to.  Regardless, I wanted to reflect the indifference I was getting pretty sick of seeing at the time.  How anyone can say we don't need to do something serious about gun violence, at this point, is beyond me.

Click here to see the full-size comic strip.

And finally, a comic strip from last December, commenting on how regular mass shootings have become.  This joke is almost 100% accurate now.  Come on, America.  Let's do something about this.

Click here for the full-size web comic.

I've drawn a lot more strips about gun violence. I have changed my opinion about gun rights over the years. At some point I'll get more into it both here on thepete.com and in my comics at BallpointAdventures.com. For now, I'll just say that America needs to seriously change how we treat the right to bear arms.  Gun regulations, gun education and our general attitude about guns, are all really quite horrible at this point.  If we, as a people, can't be responsible with our guns, why do we think we have the right to have them?  Listen to more of my thoughts on guns in last weeks episode of #thepete #podcast.  Subscribe via iTunes or subscribe by RSS.

In other news, damn, I've been drawing Billy and Barbie Ballpoint for a long time!!

Like what I draw, write, or say?  Why not help me do it! Patreon me or pick up a copy of INKSTREME BALLPOINT ADVENTURES!  Thanks so much!!

Democracy Now: Conservative Website, Brooklyn Rabbi Blame Earthquake on Declining Morals, Same-Sex Marriage

Democracy Now: Conservative Website, Brooklyn Rabbi Blame Earthquake on Declining Morals, Same-Sex Marriage

The publisher of the conservative website WorldNetDaily has published an editorial blaming Tuesday’s earthquake on the East Coast to what he sees as the nation’s declining morals. Joseph Farah writes, “Washington, D.C., deserves more than the wallop it got today. It needs a much bigger shaking up than it got.” Meanwhile, a Brooklyn rabbi named Yehuda Levin, who has ties with the National Organization for Marriage, recorded a YouTube video blaming the earthquake on the growing acceptance of same-sex marriage.

Yehuda Levin: “The Jerusalem Talmud tells us that one of the reasons that God brings earthquakes to the world is because of the transgression of homosexuality. And the Talmud states, ‘You have shaken your male member in a place where it does not belong. I, too, will shake the Earth.’ So, to those who sent out the email, yes, there’s a direct connection between earthquakes and homosexuality. There was in Haiti, and there is here in New York and Washington, D.C., where they passed homosexual legislation and ordinances.”

Ah, so that explains all the earthquakes in the Castro District of San Francisco and West Hollywood, CA.  OH WAIT, THERE WERE NO EARTHQUAKES IN THOSE AREAS OF HIGH DENSITY GAY COMMUNITIES. >_<

YOUR GOD IS AN IDIOT.

…or, he doesn’t exist AND YOU’RE JUST MAKING THIS SHIT UP, YOU ASSHOLE.

Sorry, I know gay people and they’re really nice, so I don’t understand why you have to make stuff up about how they’re bad.  So, please, just stop.  

Alan Turing - Killed by homophobia http://dntlk.com/5h

Alan Turing - Killed by homophobia http://dntlk.com/5h

Now THAT was bullying!

Personally, I feel like none of those kids could have had it as bad as Turing did and even then, I wonder why he couldn’t just leave the UK and be gay and brilliant someplace else.

But this speaks to the ultimate stupidity of letting fear dictate your actions.  If there had been a World War III, this man could have saved countless more lives. Hell, if he hadn’t killed himself in ‘54 he might have ushered in the modern age of computers decades earlier. Maybe he’d have invented the iPad.

Thanks to stupid, useless homophobia, we’ll never know.

But it’s not enough to just blame the homophobics out there.

It’s also our leaders that make no sense.  How DADT or any kind of homophobia is tolerated in 21st Century America is testament to our shitty, shitty leaders who take a stand like they haven’t any legs.

Obama says bullying isn’t a right of passage—my ass it isn’t!  Everyone gets bullied—but this is all beside the point. The real issue is irrational fear.  Obama should speak out against irrational fear of ANYthing.

Gays, Muslims, terrorists—OH WAIT… some irrational fear Obama *wants* us to feel. :(

NY Gubernatorial Candidate Carl P. Paladino Attacks Gays in Brooklyn Speech

NY Gubernatorial Candidate Carl P. Paladino Attacks Gays in Brooklyn Speech

Republican candidate for governor of New York, Carl P. Paladino, spoke to a gathering in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, that included Orthodox Jewish leaders as reported by the NYT:

“That’s not how God created us,” he said, reading from a prepared address.

“I just think my children and your children would be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family, and I don’t want them brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option — it isn’t.”

And then, to applause at Congregation Shaarei Chaim, he said: “I didn’t march in the gay parade this year — the gay pride parade this year. My opponent did, and that’s not the example we should be showing our children.” Newsday.com reported that Mr. Paladino’s prepared text had included the sentence: “There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual.” But Mr. Paladino omitted the sentence in his speech.

Ah, well, that’s one Democratic win guaranteed!

Thanks, Carl!