Our politics seems to have hit a single note these days and I would love to apologize for that. However, we’ve hit an existential crisis and we seemingly have any number of solutions that people are throwing out there. Then, there’s this guy.

It’s not the gun. It’s the evil. Raise your damn kids. Take them to church. Spank them when they deserve it. Be good to your neighbors. Throw this woke shit out of the window. Fire the blue-haired school teachers. Get in the room when the babies need you. Man up. — Robert J. O’Neill

He was a part of the seal team that took out Osama Bin Laden, so as much as I would love to throw all the snark I can at this guy, let’s treat him with the respect he deserves. So, let’s take these shots seriously. Asserting that a mass shooter is evil is like saying water is wet. A mass shooter must be evil or disturbed to shoot a room of strangers. So, saying the problem is evil is not particularly helpful. How does one identify evil before it acts? Therein lies the question.

Well, based on statistics on church attendance, 41 percent of Christians in the United States attend weekly or more as of 2018. Believe it or not, that puts the U.S. at about the midpoint in the world. Most of the countries in front of them reside exclusively in Central America, South America, and Africa. Japan is the notable exception to that. Of course, this is the percentage of Christians that attend at least once a week. It doesn’t count people that don’t identify as Christians. Poland comes in tied at 41 percent. Otherwise, every other industrialized country in Europe comes in below that. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and the United Kingdom all came in at five percent or lower.

Of course, then we get to the parenting advice portion of the tweet. We should spank our kids when they deserve it and be good to our neighbors. I’m not sure about the spanking part, but clearly something is going on when 18 year old kids want to rush out and buy a military grade weapon. Something is missing there. So, I’m not tossing this sentiment away. We can reasonably debate the best way to raise kids, but I think most reasonable people would agree that an 18 year old (or anyone else) shouldn’t have access to semi-automatic weapons or enough bullets to take out an entire elementary school.

Of course, the focus of the message was probably the reference to “woke shit” and blue haired teachers. I’ve only worked with one that I remember, so I’m not quite sure what he thinks is going on in schools. Naturally, it is a lot easier to simply say “woke shit” and not define your terms. I can imagine the very worst that way. The truth of the matter is that teachers encounter the world and the whole gamut of options on a daily basis. Most of us deal with that compassionately. A few of us don’t. We tolerate all of our students because that’s what compassionate people do. We certainly don’t preach one way or the other. We accept. I suppose if that qualifies as “woke shit” then call me guilty.

I certainly don’t mean to pick on Mr. O’Neill too much. After all, he is a legitimate war hero and he deserves our respect. That being said, he is trying really hard to blame anything else for these tragedies except the one thing we know is at fault. It is the one thing that separates us from the rest of the industrialized world. There are bad parents, Godless heathens, and mentally ill teenagers everywhere. What there isn’t is easy access to guns. Let’s keep our eye on the ball here.

Merrick Garland was selected to give the commencement address at Harvard this year.

Garland, who is a Harvard alumnus, pointed to efforts to undermine the right to vote, violence against particular groups of people, the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and the Russian invasion of Ukraine abroad as the “many ways in which democracy is under threat.”

He also asked the students to devote at least part of their lives to public service.

“You are the next generation that must devote yourselves to preserving our democracy and helping others protect theirs,” Garland said. “And although what I am asking of you is daunting, I know that you are the next generation that will fulfill the promise this country represents. I know that our democracy will be stronger by the time it is your turn to pass the baton.”

Okay, so is he telling us that we’ve given up until the next generation takes over?

If only we had somebody in public service who could do something about undermining the right to vote, violence against particular groups of people, the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol …

You know, maybe a current public servant or something like that. It seems that the Department of Empty Platitudes is doing their jobs, though.

The official definition of a terrorist is “that of a person that uses unlawful violence and intimidation against civilians in the pursuit of political aims.” You’ll immediately notice that at no time does it actually mention death or murder. That is what a lot of people mistake for terrorism. Death is but a side effect. The real goal is the political agenda.

Shortly after the Uvalde massacre, the following advertisement started making it circles around the internet. As you look at this picture, I want you to remember one thing. This isn’t the picture of some jackass taking a picture with his son. That would be bad enough. This is a picture from the maker of the gun designed to sell it. It’s a damn advertisement.

Now, let’s first dispense with a few misconceptions. This was intentional. You can’t imagine the number of people that had to sign off on this advertisement. This isn’t the work of some junior level temp that sent out an advertisement like some kind of rogue Bond villain. Dozens of people viewed it and at least half of dozen had to sign off before releasing it into the wild.

Tbere are a few things we know. The first thing is that even the rank and file in the NRA isn’t on board with what leadership is doing. Leadership doesn’t represent them anymore. We also know that the NRA has shifted over the intervening decades where they represent the interests of gun manufacturers more than the interests of individual gun owners.

For those keeping up, Daniel Defense was the producer of the weapon. They are the ones that released the picture above. So, in essence, the NRA and these gun manufacturers are willing to lie to their constituents about the availability of guns and the political motivations of Congressional Democrats and Joe Biden. They want to scare the flock into buying more guns.

So, they want to lie and intimidate the people into doing what they want. Just ask yourself how you feel when you see that picture above. What is the gut emotion in play here? Mind you, I don’t know that the NRA or Daniel Defense wants people to die. However, they are not above using their deaths in order to further their political agenda. They want more people to buy guns. They want more guns and bigger guns. We already have more guns than people. Why not two times? Three times? Four times?

So, when an interest group and a company uses fear and intimidation to further a political agenda what exactly do we call that? What do we call it when that interest group continues to hold it’s rallies and conventions days after these tragedies? It isn’t hard to picture members of the Taliban or Al Queda dancing up and down on 9/11. Heck, politicians used those images to stoke anger in us. Simply transpose the images of politicians and rednecks dancing on stage and cheering and it is the same exact thing.

I want you to take a good look at that picture above. Is that a picture from a company that is so tone deaf that they just don’t know they are being overwhelmingly offensive? Do you really believe that? Or, is that the photo designed to trigger people on one side or another. What do you call people that use fear and intimidation for their own political ends and profit? I wish there was a name for that. It’s right there on the tip of my tongue.

Gun manufacturers are protected from liability lawsuits by a law pushed by Republicans and signed by GWB in 2005; up until Sandy Hook, PLCAA (Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act) was a bulwark against claims against manufacturers, distributors, and dealers.   Sandy Hook changed that when the parents of slaughtered children went after Remington, not for the gun, but for their advertising that was aimed…wait for it…at kids.  Advertising was a gap in the law that the counsel for the parents exploited, because Remington pushed assault weapons at young boys.  The principle ad was if you had a Bushmaster AR-15, you earned your Platinum Man Card.  That’s right, no shit.  Here’s one of the ads:

On top of that, Remington licensed the Bushmaster to make the video game, Call of Duty, that showed kids how to tape two 30 round magazines together to quickly reload so they could kill more people.  The lawsuit  worked, the  SCOTUS allowed the case to go forward, and Remington ended up coughing up $73 million to the families who lost children in the Sandy Hook massacre.

Fast forward to this week at Uvalde, Texas.  The AR-15 that the shooter used was manufactured by Daniel Defense, a company based in Georgia.  Here’s a tweet the company posted on May 16th.  Bad timing, to say the least:

In case you can’t read the caption, it says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”  That’s not the only tweet, but it seems that’s enough.

I think there is a really good lawyer who would love to take this case against Daniel Defense.  Tick, tick, tick…

I have done this one before. All that is old is new again. The overwhelming theme that has occurred this week in the argument over gun control are those three words. Because I can. I have gotten into debates with multiple folks on social media and all of them have asserted the same things. The second amendment gives me the right to do it. Of course, whether that’s true or not is up for debate. I don’t have time for that debate in these spaces right now.

Because I can. That has become to conservative mantra in the United States. It has become the mantra of the MAGA crowd. Because I can. I can cheat on my taxes. I can commit fraud on the American public. I can grab the private parts of women. I can be selfish and refuse to wear a mask. I can be selfish and refuse to get a vaccine or follow basic safety protocols. Because I can.

Because we can. Essentially, the difference between a fully functioning adult with moral autonomy and one that isn’t is the keen understanding between “can” and “should.” I’ve fought this my whole life. It’s a hard lesson to learn. That period of early adulthood is key. For the first time in your life you have autonomy from your parents. You CAN do things they would never allow you to do. Because we can. However, that is never the most important question. The most important question is whether we should.

I still remember vividly serving on the editorial board of my college newspaper. A student had been accused of sexual assault. He had not been charged. Journalistic ethics indicate you can report on it and publish his picture. So, the rest of the editorial board chose to do that. We have the right to do it. I didn’t think it was wise since we were a small campus and were the only source of news for the campus.

I lost that debate. They told me I wasn’t a journalism major and simply didn’t understand. We have the right to do it. Because we can. As it turned out, the charges were dropped. The student in question had an identical twin on campus. Both had to transfer to another university because of the fall out. The alleged victim recanted her story, so no one knows if an assault even occurred. Because we can.

All this happened because no one bothered to ask the important question: should we do this? Far too many people have made life more difficult, more painful, and more cruel because they’ve never bothered to ponder that question. Should we do this? Because I can has been the default position. Because I can has been the mantra that has driven this country into a ditch.

Naturally one could take this whole concept to its logical extreme, but any time a decision is made, the effects on those around us should be considered. Does my behavior present an inherent risk to those around me? Does my behavior make the world a better place or a worse place? Because I can is just simply not good enough. We need better. We deserve better.

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