Heavy Artillery and the Wisdom of Strangers

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Ferriday, Louisiana—Ever since we jettisoned our trebuchet somewhere outside Murfreesboro, we’ve been traveling a little light in the way of high-powered weaponry. If pressed, our first line of defense would probably be a bag of fried pig skins (impulse buy), but even at their most potent, those would take a few decades to kill you. We’re toast, basically—as strangers we’ve met have been quick to point. Here’s some sage advice we received—entirely unsolicited—from the two employees of a one-room diner in Natchez, the first a thirtysomething male named (I think) Marsaw, and the second a woman a few decades his senior.

“You’re going through Texas!,” says Marsaw. “What kinda gun you got?”

“Just our fists.”

“You mean you’re not carrying a gun?” Marsaw’s incredulous.

“We like to think we’re pretty intimidating people.”

The woman laughs, which I’ll just assume is her defense mechanism. We get that a lot.

“My dad always said, ‘Always have a flashlight and a gun wherever you go,'” says Marsaw. “‘That way if you need to stop and fight you won’t get shot in the back.’ You can pull out the .22. Protect yourself.”

The flashlight seems kind of superfluous in that scenario, but okay.

The woman jumps in: “Well you can just use the tire iron [she makes a violent thwacking gesture]. You know, it’s legal to put the tire iron in the glove compartment in Mississippi, from the trunk. You can just do that.”

“Well they should get the .22, too.”

“Yeah, but if they don’t have a .22 they gotta use the tire iron.”

“Yeah, .22 and a tire iron.”

Done and done. Of course, if you buy a .22, you’ll probably want a concealed-carry permit to go with it. Utah, anyone?

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate