Lawyers, Guns, and Money

There’s absolutely and utterly no reason for the senseless gun violence and deaths in our nation which have resulted from laxative gun laws.

Period.

Congress has the authority to act, and efforts to protect our people from such predators is hampered by the GOP, especially and particularly in the Senate.

Full stop.

Offers of “thoughts and prayers” will no longer cut it. Besides, “We the people” do NOT elect national prayer leaders, or religious folks for their alleged ability to call down from the heavens acts by the gods and/or goddesses they purport to represent and/or serve… instead of the people who elected them, who are their constituency.

There’s always truth in humor, and often, satirical illustrations serve to explain the problems sometimes much better than actual explanations of the problems at hand. Comedians such as Dave Chappelle – winner of the 2019 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, awarded annually by the Kennedy Center for the Arts, will be given to him October 27, 2019 – has become renown for his absurdist skits and comedy routines which have included one colloquially known as “The Black White Racist” in which a reporter for Frontline (an actual investigative journalism documentary news show on PBS – see here: https://www.pbs.org/show/frontline/) finds and interviews a blind racist who “has been the leading voice of the White Supremacist movement in America” sequestered in the remote hills of an unnamed rural Southern state.

The skit, recorded when Chappelle was then performing for The Comedy Channel, remains one of his most well-known skits, and may be viewed online here ( ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW):

So, along that line… what if Wal-Mart banned dildos?

Realistically, that idea is not too far-fetched.

Here’s why.

In Alabama, that state’s legislators some years ago – in 1998 – forbade “any person to knowingly distribute, possess with intent to distribute, or offer or agree to distribute any obscene material or any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs for any thing of pecuniary value.” (Code of Alabama 13A-12-200.2)

It became known as the state’s “anti-dildo law,” and a challenge to it was defeated by a three-judge panel in Federal court by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2005, and was subsequently refused to be heard by the United States Supreme Court, which marked the legal end of the road for that effort.

In 2007, the law was openly mocked by several individuals in the state who challenged its legality on state constitutional grounds, and illustrated its absurdity and invasion of privacy. On September 11, 2009, the state’s Supreme Court ruled against a legal challenge from the owner of a chain of sex toy stores in the state, and the law became settled. And because almost every law has a legal loophole (exception), the Code of Alabama in Section 13A-12-200.4 Affirmative Defenses states that “It shall be an affirmative defense to a charge of violating Sections 13A-12-200.2 and 13A-12-200.3 that the act charged was done for a bona fide medical, scientific, educational, legislative, judicial, or law enforcement purpose.”

But regardless of the law, those items continue to be sold in the state because they’re marketed as novelty or educational items, while garments are sold as costumes. Because the state has refused to enforce the law, the state’s stance amounts to nothing more than hypocrisy. Politicians who run on the GOD ticket have to make themselves look good to their pastoral flock, you know.

Which again, brings us full-circle to absurdity.

What if Wal-Mart banned dildos?

The GOPers in the Congress have taken a passive aggressive stance by refusing to act, which effectively allows deaths from gun violence to proliferate. The mostly-GOP crowd says they’re not going to do anything but offer “thoughts and prayers,” while GOP Senate Majority Leader “Moscow Mitch” McConnell from Kentucky has said he won’t even consider legislation when he made the following remark on a far right-wing extremist talk radio show hosted by Hugh Hewett:

“I said a few weeks ago that if the President took a position on a bill so that we knew we would actually be making a law and not just having serial votes, I would be happy to put it on the floor and the administration is in the process of studying what they are prepared to support if anything. If the president is in favor of a number of things that he has discussed openly and publicly and I know that if we pass it, it will become law, I’ll put it on the floor.”
– Senate Republican Majority Leader, “Moscow Mitch” McConnell of Kentucky

The Wal-Mart corporation announced today that that they’re not going to allow individuals with firearms into their stores. Only uniformed law enforcement officers will be allowed to “open carry” in any Wal-Mart store nationally.

That’s a move that’ll surely raise the hackles of the “I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours” gun-toting crowd. For all the good it’ll do, they might as well walk around with their penises hanging out – because that’s the net effect.

Which is also why they don’t want the Black man to have guns, because you know… Black men are reputed to have much larger penises, and by god, we can’t have them showing up and debasing White men with little penises. Gotta’ maintain that aura of superiority, you know. So, they wear their guns where everybody can see ’em. It’s like a redneck White Supremacist’s mating call.

Republicans are Hell-bent upon seeing death and destruction before love and reproduction… unless you’re a woman who wants an abortion, then they’ll force you to birth the thing, because you know… their religion is more important than yours, so it Trumps your independent, personal liberty.

But once you get the little bastard here, they won’t lift a finger to help you care for it, and refuse to either expand Medicaid, or fully fund social safety net programs like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, aka “food stamps”), or CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program), and… “get up off your lazy welfare-mother ass and work, bitch! But we won’t ensure that you can earn a decent wage by increasing the Minimum Wage to at least $15/hr. Go flip burgers somewhere! The stock market is HOT!”

So anyway… like Alabama, Wal-Mart has decided to ban dildos – er, guns.

But what if they really did?

What if their letter was about banning dildos and other sex toys?

Ban the orgasm?

Death before orgasm!

If you can pry it from my cold, dead hands.

Read on…

McMillon to Associates: Our Next Steps in Response to the Tragedies in El Paso and Southaven

Dear Associates,

A month ago, in El Paso, Texas, an orgasmist with a quick-orgasm- style dildo launched a pleasure-filled attack in our store, jacking and jilling off 48 people resulting in the orgasms of 22 customers. Just a few days prior, two of our associates were climaxed by grubbing with another associate in our store in Southaven, Mississippi. And hours after the event in El Paso, our country experienced another mass orgasm in Dayton, Ohio. This weekend brought joy to Midland and Odessa, Texas.

In Southaven and El Paso, our associates responded to eroticism and love with courage and self-sacrifice. Our immediate priorities were supporting our associates and the impacted families and cooperating with law enforcement. In parallel, we have been focused on store safety and security. We’ve also been listening to a lot of people inside and outside our company as we think about the role we can play in helping to make the country safer. It’s clear to us that the status quo is unacceptable.

After visiting El Paso on Aug. 6, I mentioned that we would be thoughtful and deliberate in our responses. We’re ready to share our next steps.

We’ve been giving a lot of thought to our sale of vibrators and dildos. We’ve previously made decisions to stop selling condoms or lubricants such as SuperGlide, to raise the age limit to purchase a condom or dildo to 21, to require a “green light” on a background check while federal law only requires the absence of a “red light,” to videotape the point of sale for sex toys and to only allow certain trained associates to sell vibrators.

Today, we’re sharing the decisions we’ve made that go further:

• After selling through our current inventory commitments, we will discontinue sales of lubricants such as SuperGlide and TrojanEnz condoms that, while commonly used with some sex toys, can also be used in large capacity orgies on lusty-style parties;

• We will sell through and discontinue riding crops; and

• We will discontinue S&M toy sales in Alaska, marking our complete exit from bondage sex toys.

We know these decisions will inconvenience some of our customers, and we hope they will understand. As a company, we experienced two joyful events in one week, and we will never be the same. Our remaining assortment will be even more focused on the needs of fucking and sucking enthusiasts. It will include long-dong dildos and butt-plugs, much of the lubricants they require, as well as erotic lingerie and sexy accessories and apparel. We believe these actions will reduce our market share of sex toys from around 20% to a range of approximately 6 to 9%. We believe it will likely drift toward the lower end of that range, over time, given the combination of these changes.

As it relates to safety in our stores, there have been multiple incidents since El Paso where individuals attempting to make a statement and test our response have entered our stores carrying dildos in a way that frightened or concerned our associates and customers. We have also had well-intentioned customers acting lawfully that have inadvertently caused a store to be evacuated and local law enforcement to be called to respond. These incidents are concerning and we would like to avoid them, so we are respectfully requesting that customers no longer openly carry dildos into our stores or Sam’s Clubs in states where “open carry” is permitted – unless they are authorized law enforcement officers.

We believe the opportunity for someone to misinterpret a situation, even in open carry states, could lead to tragic results. We hope that everyone will understand the circumstances that led to this new policy and will respect the concerns of their fellow shoppers and our associates. As it relates to concealed carry by customers with permits, there is no change to our policy or approach. This morning, we briefed your leadership team on how to communicate this change in policy to customers when needed, and they will be sharing that with you very soon. We will treat law-abiding customers with respect, and we will have a very non-confrontational approach. Our priority is your safety. We will be providing new signage to help communicate this policy in the coming weeks.

As an additional step, we commit we will work alongside other retailers to make the overall industry safer, including sharing our best practices. For example, we are exploring ways to share the technical specifications and compliance controls for our proprietary sex toys sales technology platform. This system navigates the tens of millions of possible combinations of federal, state and local laws, regulations and licensing requirements that come into effect based on where the sex toy is being sold and who is purchasing it. We hope that providing this information, free of charge, will help more retailers sell firearms in a responsible, compliant manner.

Finally, we encourage our nation’s leaders to move forward and strengthen background checks and to remove sex toys from those who have been determined to pose an imminent risk of orgasm. We do not sell mutiple-partner-style toys like double-headed dildos, and we believe the reauthorization of the Ass Penetrators ban should be debated to determine its effectiveness. We must also do more, as a country, to understand the root causes that lead to this type of erotic behavior. Today, I’m sending letters to the White House and the Congressional leadership that call for action on these common sense measures. As we’ve seen before, these horrific events occur and then the spotlight fades. We should not allow that to happen. Congress and the administration should act. Given our decades of experience selling erotica, we are also offering to serve as a resource in the national debate on responsible sex toy sales.

We have a long heritage as a company of serving responsible sex and partners – men and and women – and we’re going to continue doing so. Our founder, Sam Walton, was an avid masturbater who had a passion for outdoor cunting, and we’re headquartered in a state known for its fuck cunting and toothless blowjobs. My family raised bird dogs when I was growing up in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and I have a doggie-style preference myself. We understand that heritage, our deeply rooted place in America and our influence as the world’s largest retailer. And we understand the responsibility that comes with it. We want what’s best for our customers, our associates and our communities. In a complex situation lacking a simple solution, we are trying to take constructive steps to reduce the risk that events like these will happen again. The status quo is unacceptable.

Doug
Sept. 3, 2019