FIRST • PREVIOUS • NEXT • LAST
(permalink to this strip)
ALL STRIPS
SUPPORT WTFA ON PATREON

Hippo: I was reluctant to say this out loud during the first Trump regime because I didn't want anyone getting ideas, but... Hippo: I did kind of wonder where the Second Amendment people were when they were putting children in cages at the border. Hippo: now that fascism is actually here I realize... Hippo: They're all just racists pretending to be freedom fighters.

NEW COMIC TWO OR THREE TIMES A WEEK, OR WHEN THE MOOD STRIKES

Back in 2016, when everyone was pretty sure Hillary was going to win the election, a card-carrying NRA member friend of mine told me how he and his buddy drove all the way out to deep Pennsylvania to pick up some high-capacity magazines which, he told me, Hillary would definitely outlaw once she got in the White House. I'd known this guy for several years, and we often talked politics, but this was the moment I saw how extensive his delusions were. I pointed out that he (and a lot of other people) had been screaming about how Obama was coming for their guns for eight years while, if anything, civilian firearms had gotten more powerful and easy to obtain. You're telling me the left was waiting all this time to spring gun reform on the republic until after Hillary was elected?

Up until that moment I'd been fairly pro-gun. After the Branch Davidians and Ruby Ridge I figured we the people really did need firearms to overthrow the government if it got too pushy. But that was the moment where I realized how utterly insane are the fantasies of American gun owners. It's never been about the government; it's only ever been about the fear that one day, someone, probably dark-skinned, is going to want to take your stuff, and you're going to want to shoot them for it. American gun nuts are like the scrawny guy in those old Charles Atlas comic book ads, only instead of buying Atlas's program to bulk up, they're buying AR-15s to mow down anyone who might kick sand in their face. They don't want to end bullying, they want to make sure they get to be the bullies, and that's why they're not going up against ICE or the Gestapo or the Stasi. Those guys are living the dream.