Occasionally you come upon a story that asks you to take the bait. You read a teaser and you know you should let it go, but something inside tells you to scratch that itch. The parents from the Uvalde shooting were in Washington trying to get something done on gun control. They were handing out pins. When it came to handing one to Lauren Boebert you could probably have predicted how well that would go.

There are any number of reasons why this story shouldn’t be told. The first and best reason is that this is exactly what she wants. She wants to be the center of attention. She wants a majority of the country to think she is a despicable person. It’s what trolls do. The second reason is that we know she would never vote for gun control anyway, so it really doesn’t impact our day to day lives any. It is just an excuse to become more aggrivated and upset. I wanted to throw out these two caveats before giving her exactly what she wants.

The parents of Maite Rodriguez made lapel pins of their daughter’s shoe for lawmakers to wear to honor her memory and urge them to act on her behalf and provided pamphlets asking lawmakers to act. As the story went, that was the only way they could identify her in the aftermath. Let’s be fair here. This is an obvious manipulation. Wearing the pin means you support common sense gun legislation. If you don’t and you still wear the pin then you are just being a liar to score cheap political points. What she should have done is graciously accept the pin, simply not wear it, and then discard it in her office or home.

Boebert can be clearly seen in video throwing the pin away within eyeshot of the families that were there. What she should do is be respectful of them. It’s a basic lesson we were all taught growing up. All of us have received gifts that were just hideous. We had the presence of mind and manners to say thank you and wait until we got home to discard the item.

It’s at this point where we have to move to idle speculation. Maybe Boebert wasn’t taught that growing up. We know she dropped out of school because she became a teenage mom. We know the hot water her husband and her got into earlier in life. We know her son impregnated a girl that she would only say “is older than 14.” Given all this, it is fair to ask what manners she was taught. When we consider her academic record it is also fair to say that she could have been taught but she just didn’t learn.

On the other hand, this may not be a question of manners. It may be a question of performance art. Socrates called himself a “gadfly” in Plato’s Republic and in other assorted works that described his life and work. Gadfly seems to highbrow for Boebert. We could instead call her an ass. In that world, whoever can say or do the most outlandish thing wins. Congratulations Lauren, you’ve won that label for today.

Others have commented on the police response in Uvalde, but I have not. I have been waiting for facts, but there have been so few up to this point. We know a few things. First, we know that the shooter went in through a back door, we know parents begged officers to go in, and we know they did not go in for over an hour. We should probably take each of those points one at a time because each has been a huge part of this story. It was initially reported that the shooter went through a door that had been propped open by a rock. As it turned out, she closed the door and naturally assumed it was locked to those outside. Apparently, it wasn’t.

As an aside, I went through this exercise with our daughter. We had her mentally track how many doors students could legally enter at her school and settled on four. We then asked her how many total points of entry there were and settled on fourteen. Keep in mind that there are around 130,000 documented schools in the United States. That’s not counting universities and community colleges. Could you imagine the expense and manpower it would take to guard each of those doors (even just the legal ones) and to secure the rest?

Let’s pretend that your junior highs and high schools have two points of entry and exit and all the rest are successfully locked down. Let’s go with what Ted Cruz suggested and have one point of entry at the elementary schools. Mind you, this would violate fire code and present other possible dangers, but can you imagine the manpower we are talking to have an armed guard at each of those doors? We are talking about over 200,000 people.

The second fact we know is that parents begged to save their children and cops refused. Did they do the right thing? I obviously wasn’t there, haven’t had any combat training, and certainly haven’t game played through any hostage negotiations. Would there have been more dead had the police breached the school and engaged the shooter sooner? Would they have saved more lives doing that? We will never know on both counts.

What is true in this light is how absurd an idea it is to arm teachers. I can count far too many reasons why this is an absolutely horrible idea. Let’s assume that the teacher is trained to fire their weapon as those on the right have suggested. That alleviates only one concern. The second concern would be storage of the weapon. Do you want them to store it on their person or keep it secured somewhere in their classroom? What happens if they or that location is compromised?

Then we move onto the actual gaming of the mass shooter scenario. They may be trained to shoot, but are they trained in that specific scenario? What does SWAT do when they see an armed intruder AND armed teachers? What happens if a teacher has a mental breakdown and become the shooter themselves? Even in the best of cases we encountered a situation where trained police felt powerless to do anything. Whether they were negligent or justified is important but also very telling when you consider what you are asking untrained teachers to do.

There is always a non-zero chance the worst will occur and there always will be a non-zero chance no matter what we do. We start with the most obvious thing and move are way down from there. Restricting the gun is the most obvious thing. Door control, armed teachers, and armed soldiers sounds lovely but ultimately ineffective without doing the obvious thing.

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 turns out that the police response to the Uvalde shooting was a shitshow, and then local authorities lied to the media about it.  Local and state authorities reported that the shooter was engaged by officers on the way in to the school.  FALSE.  Reports were then issued that SWAT took out the shooter.  Looks like that is false, too.  Then it was reported that an off duty border patrol officer shot the shooter.  We don’t know yet. Video has now emerged and witness accounts confirm that police hung back for AN HOUR before going in.

Could lives have been saved if they moved faster? We don’t know yet, but the likely answer is yes.  What we do know is that Abbott and his crew spent the better part of two days grandstanding, giving false information, and spouting bullshit about how gun laws don’t work.  We also know that this catastrophe clearly demonstrates that the “good guy with a gun” myth is bullshit.  This is the logical result of allowing weapons of war into the general populace and there is no ifs ands or buts about that conclusion.

Ted Cruz continues to show his ass to the media spouting nonsense about arming teachers and closing off all but one door to schools.  He’s like a broken record spouting his bullshit and lies, complaining about Democrats proposing legislation he hates, but offering no alternatives of his own.  He’s a useless bag of shit and  I wish he’d go back to Canada and leave Texas to Texans.  We don’t need his “help”.

Yesterday, during a political stunt being held by Greg Abbott, Beto O’Rourke showed up, interrupted the scripted event and said what the rest of us are thinking, that these recently murdered children’s blood is on his hands.   Before he was politely escorted out, Beto got in a few shots including, “The time to stop the next shooting is right now and you are doing nothing.”

John Lewis would have been proud.  In a lifetime of activism Lewis always spoke of getting into “good trouble” protesting injustice and inequality.  He was arrested and beaten several times during his protests for civil rights in the ’60s, and always coached those coming behind to continue getting into “good trouble” using non-violent presence and words.  Beto did that yesterday, and I have to say it was remarkably effective.  The stage was packed with rightwing blowhards including radio talk show host Dan Patrick, felony indicted for 7 years Ken Paxton, Cancun Ted Cruz and others and they were caught completely flatfooted as O’Rourke gave Abbott a piece of his mind.  The mayor of Uvalde, who was participating in this political stunt, called Beto a “sick son of a bitch” for “politicizing” this political event.  Observers of Abbott have noted that when caught lying, bullshitting, and politicizing, Abbott starts talking really fast and stuttering.  Let’s just say he did both after being called out for his lying, bullshitting, and politicizing.

I’ve never been a big fan of O’Rourke, especially when he blundered by running for president at the precisely wrong time in 2016.  He squandered his political strength with that mistep; however, you can watch him maturing live on television, and he is becoming a forminable figure in Texas politics. If nothing else you can say one thing about him…he’s a hell of a lot better and stronger than the clown sitting in the governor’s mansion today.

Thoughts and prayers. When one hears that phrase they have to suppress the rage that exists inside them. After all, there is nothing inherently wrong with thoughts and prayers. Surely you would rather have someone think about you and pray for you then do nothing at all. Moreover, everyone seems to offer that in these times and not everyone can be a bad actor.

There are three levels of response to these kinds of things. The first level is a gut reaction to the event. We hold our loved ones a little longer. We hug them a little more strongly. We seek the comfort of a beloved family pet and thank our lucky stars if no one we personally know was involved.

The second visceral reaction is one of unadulterated anger. My initial reaction was the same as Sandy Hook. It was the same as Santa Fe. It was the same as Columbine and Florida. It’s the exact same as Virginia Tech and Boulder as well. It was the same as Vegas. It was definitely the same as Buffalo.

People doing nothing other than going about their daily lives don’t deserve this. No one deserves this. It’s particularly cruel when it involves children. They had their whole lives in front of them. My first immediate thought is that the right can take their second amendment and shove it up their sanctimonious ass. They can take their thoughts and prayers and shove it up their sanctimonious ass. They can take their pro life hypocrisy and shove it up their sanctimonious ass. They don’t get to speak anymore. They get to sit down and shut the hell up so the adults can get to work.

Admittedly, as great as that feels to say, it doesn’t help the situation either. Sadness doesn’t help prevent the next one. Anger doesn’t help prevent the next one. Only action will help prevent the next one. So, any overtures to repeal the second amendment are going nowhere. We know that. The only thing it does is provide the other side with a juicy soundbite to play on the campaign trail. It’s time for adults to sit down and figure this thing out.

Universal background checks should be a thing. The assault weapons ban should be a thing. Mandatory waiting periods should be a thing. Gun registration should be a thing. Let the right prattle on about how this is a mental health issue. Great. Get up off your ass and actually do something about mental health then.

You don’t get to make excuses you have no intention of following through on just to deflect from the obvious gun problem we have. You don’t get to offer platitudes about this, that, and the other without offering real solutions. We pay you for solutions. We don’t pay you for thoughts and prayers. We don’t pay you to flee to Cancun. We don’t pay you to make excuses, obfuscate, or derail the legislative process. We pay you to make our lives better. We pay you to make our lives safer.

Maybe repealing the second amendment isn’t reasonable. We are allowed our immediate thoughts as we process yet another one of these. We are allowed our outward signs of anger after one of these that never should have happened in the first place. We are allowed to dream of a world where the United States can manage to be like every other industrialized nation in the world. So, no I will not take your guns. Joe Biden will not take your guns. Kamala Harris and every other Democrat will not take your guns. Just understand that deep down inside many of us want to.