It Will Never Be Too Soon To Talk About Firearm Violence

by Unknown 2:28 PM 0 comments firearms nra shootings violence

Another day in America and another mass shooting has occurred.  This time 10 people* were killed at Umpqua Community College, just a day trip or so south of where I grew up.  13 firearms were found to be possessed by the suspect. I'll sure bet he absolutely needed every last one of those 13 weapons for self-defense.

For once, Fox News is actually encouraging a discourse regarding firearms - albeit with their own spin.  They put their typical anchor up there talking about how we should be waiting a few days before "politicizing" firearm violence (uh yeah, that's how we make laws) - but for once had someone arguing that you can't wait a few days because there will just be another shooting.  Indeed, she behaved as though this was Fox News' attitude all along when that couldn't be further from the truth. Just a week ago Fox News was arguing against gun control, calling it ineffective while simultaneously lumping all mentally ill people together and shitting all over them as a collective group.

It will always be "too soon" to talk about mass shootings and gun control because the shootings will never stop, nor will they slow down until we address the problem the United States has with firearm violence.  That's exactly the way the NRA wants it.

Immediately after the Sandy Hook shooting, we were poised on the brink of change on firearm legislation.  The NRA was under pressure the likes of which they'd never seen.  The country and many of its leaders were screaming at the organization to DO something.  Not one more child must be lost to senseless and entirely preventable firearm violence.

The NRA was intentionally keeping quiet.  The lower the profile, the faster this was going to go away for them.

Then, without telling anyone, without asking the board, without bringing it up with his organization - NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre slapped his dick and giant, impenetrable titanium cojones on the table (er, podium?) and said with a completely straight face that it wasn't the presence of guns that killed our children that day - it was the absence of even more guns.



"The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to have a good guy with a gun." (Or you could just not let the bad guy have a gun in the first fucking place, you slimy fuckstick.)  After the Charleston shooting, the NRA went so far as to blame the victims themselves, arguing that they'd still be alive if they themselves had been armed.T

This is a ridiculously simplistic fallacious argument with literally no basis in reality.  It's not like LaPierre financed a study which found that, in violent situations, innocent civilians are more likely to survive the encounter if they are in possession of a firearm.  No such research has ever taken place.  LaPierre isn't interested in literal facts, he's interested in dollar signs.  Though, on the subject of research, afterthe Charlie Hebdo shooting a pro-gun group recreated the event with guns in the hands of the employees - attempting to prove that a good guy with a gun WILL stop a bad guy with a gun. They all pretend-died. The shooter lived every single time.  Even in pretend scenarios when trying to prove that the good guy will win, the bad guy with the gun killed every civilian, every time.  Anyone surprised? Anyone? An aggressive gunman is always going to have a huge advantage over someone who doesn't suspect that a violent situation is about to occur.

You'd think in a country where the vast majority of Americans support common-sense firearm legislation, we'd have no issue passing laws which help to keep our citizens safe from psychotic extremists obtaining firearms.  You'd think that.  If you thought your vote mattered. I've got news for you though...

...it doesn't.

You see, when it gets right down to it, it's not you who makes the laws.  It's the US Representatives and Senators - many whose pockets are lined with gilded treats from interest groups.  When it comes time to vote and a Senator has to choose between their morals and that $90,000 cheque in their pocket instructing them to "vote for guns", who do you think wins?  And who is bought? The easier answer, as always, is who -isn't- bought, but let's look at some of the people currently fighting to keep guns in the hands of psychopaths...

It should be a surprise to no one that Teddy Cruz - Tea Party nutjob and all around creepy-looking sadsack who either keeps trying to leap forcefully onto the back of everyone else's bandwagon or perhaps is just in desperate need of some friends.  The NRA gives him an A+ for being such a good little lapdog. Who's a good boy? You are Ted! Who wants a tummy rub?!!?

Marco Rubio is rated B+ by the NRA, Mitch McConnell, beloved turtle and all around demented grandpa looking type has an A rating.  On the Representative side, Paul Ryan gets an A - and recently retired John Boehner was awarded an A+.  Their ratings were given to them by the NRA for their support in pro-firearm legislation...and of course they were.  They were well paid to do so.

Money talks - and it screams louder than you ever will. 

The NRA and other pro-gun lobbying groups throw massive amounts of money fashioning gun-coloured glasses for our leaders to wear and lacing their voices with so many dollar signs, your own will never be heard above the din.

When they're not making Americans afraid of what the bad guys will do to them if they don't have as many guns as possible - they're making Americans afraid of their own government, filling them with fear that their guns are going to be taken from them.  They're taking the second amendment and twisting it to make it appear as though the founding fathers always intended for us to be armed to the teeth. (I have this mental image of zombie George Washington just spinning in his grave over all of our bullshit).  George Washington wanted a free people to have enough weapons to defend themselves.  I've got news for y'all, we achieved that over a hundred years ago.   Now we've just turned into the batshit crazy cat-lady hoarder of weapons.  We have rooms so full of weapons we can't walk across them, but we just can't stop buying them no matter how our friends plead with us to seek help for our obvious problem.  Still we need more guns.  MORE.  MOOOORE.

Pro-gun activists amass, heavily armed, threatening what they will do if their guns are taken away. The problem is that no one has taken any of their guns away, but their guns have taken away many of our children.

Right - because coming upon this will totally make me feel like I'm safe and in no way about to be murdered and/or otherwise assaulted by that large group of white men holding assault weapons.  Oh yeah, I'd feel totally protected.

I'd begin my argument anew - the one I've used before - that Australia experienced just this in the 90s.  I'd argue that they stopped it with the gun buyback.  I'd argue that things changed for the better -but I know better.

I've made the argument before and always had it responded to in the same way.  It couldn't work here.  This is a different place.  America is different.  America is special.  America is exceptional.

I have news for you, America.  Y'ain't different.  Y'ain't special.  Y'ain't exceptional.

You sure are, America! You're #1 in: incarceration rates, obesity, firearm violence, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, mental illness, personal debt (student/mortgage/credit card), income inequality and a whole host of embarrassing things...

That's a line that's been fed to you whenever people are calling for great change.  They point to a solution that another country tried and say, "Maybe it could work!" and the voices of stagnancy turn around and say, "But it would never work here - we are special.".  They say that to shut you down, to keep you from fighting.  They say that to shut down your hope that change is possible.

I actually do have hope for change, though.  Americans are slowly coming to the realization that the US is no longer a democracy and that their voices are being silenced by money.  They're getting angry and demanding change.  Small groups like Wolf PAC are passing legislation to get money out of politics.  Things may one day change.  We may one day see guns out of the hands of people least suited to possess them.

Until then, we go round and round.  Another shooting, another day when it's considered inappropriate to bring it up.

Until then we'll continue nomming on that delicious Ouroboros tail of violence.


* Death tolls varied at the time of this writing