Thoughts and Prayers
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.
there are no words, but I’ll try. The right loves the pre-born, but doesn’t give two sh*ts about the little ones once born. All they seem to care about is repealing abortion and allowing everyone in the country to own a gun. It breaks my heart. They don’t really care about school shootings, because their children go to private schools with Fort Knox-like security. They especially don’t care about poor hispanic children getting killed.
They say it’s a mental health problem. Really? Are we such a terrible country then that we have so much more mental illness than other countries? No!! We have a group of politicians whose sole aim is to get reelected and enjoy the perks of their offices. If that means taking money from the NRA, they’ll do it! They’ll break the law to stay to try to stay in office (see 45). If nothing else this speaks to the need for term limits – if they can’t get re-electd under the law, maybe then they’ll pass sensible gun legislation. Like they have in Iceland – where there are mandatory screening, licensing, classes and tests for gun owners (BTW Iceland has a lot of gun owners and no where near the gun violence the USA does). Maybe we’ll get lucky and the next meteor that hits will wipe out the US and do the world a favor.
1On the same day I wrote this, my daughter sent me a text from her school. They are in lockdown and it is not a drill. Whatever positive vibes you can send would be greatly appreciated. She told us through text that there is a rumor of multiple people with a gun, but we have not heard anything from the district yet and they are usually pretty good about keeping us informed.
2Volodymyr Zelenskyy took time out of the invasion of his country to extend his condolences to the people of Texas and the USA. Ukrainians are on social media asking why American Republicans allow the slaughter of children in schools in a nation at peace.
Every time I saw a Republican pop up on social media with more of their useless “senseless tragedy” and even more useless prayers, they were swarmed by people calling them the party of child murderers.
Politics is not driven by facts, as much as Democrats want to think it is. No amount of explaining facts wins elections, as famously noted by Ronald Reagan: If you’re explaining, you’re losing.
Throw their lying hypocrisy about being “pro-life” or “think about the children” or “back the blue” back in their lying faces with emotional arguments. Their laws support child murder. They are the party of child murderers. Make them deny it in public, like LBJ’s famous anecdote about accusing someone of being a porcine copulator.
3Some people try to train a puppy not to mess up the house by rubbing its nose in the stuff. I don’t think this works but right now I am angry enough to round up every Republican in Texas and rub their faces in the blood of murdered children. Don’t let them wash before they go to the NRA meeting this weekend in Houston. And don’t let Abbott delete his tweet urging Texans to surpass California in gun buying.
4RE “Politics is not driven by facts…” in comment 2.
Ds seem to issue endless reports, big PowerPoint style presentations and other forms of data-dense material backing up their arguments. But R’s make up a fact-free slogan that matches the ideology they are promoting and repeat it endlessly until it is sewn into the public fabric. It helps, of course, that the a Rs have over the last many decades built a 24/7 propaganda machine (Fox etc.) to amplify their decrees.
The history of the 2nd Amendment is a good example.
“The National Rifle Association’s long crusade to bring its interpretation of the Constitution into the mainstream teaches a…lesson: Constitutional change is the product of public argument and political maneuvering. The pro-gun movement may have started with scholarship, but then it targeted public opinion and shifted the organs of government. By the time the issue reached the Supreme Court, the desired new doctrine fell like a ripe apple from a tree.”
“How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment”
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/how-nra-rewrote-second-amendment
5From Jack Holmes, political editor at Esquire:
“In retrospect,” reads a famous tweet from Dan Hodges, “Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”
6Ronny Jackson said “I think about the horrible stuff they hear when they listen to rap music, the video games that they watch from a really early age with all of this horrible violence and stuff and I just think that they have this access to the internet on a regular basis, which is just, you know, it’s not good for kids.”
7Other developed countries have rap music, video games, the internet, social media, mental illness, and all the other things gun-lovers blame for mass killings. Why is the U.S. so stunningly more dangerous? What does the U.S. have that other countries don’t? Think about it!
A good article on “America’s gun culture in 7 charts” is at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081
“In retrospect,” reads a famous tweet from Dan Hodges, “Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”
Except that is not remotely true. America did not decide. A small cabal of Americans has decided that. Overwhelming majorities have wanted gun control for generations and it just doesn’t stick. They wanted that before Sandy Hook and they certainly wanted it afterwards. It is yet another example of the people in the country being at odds with those in Congress, in state legislatures, and on the courts. I’m not even sure what to call this particular phenomenon but it is a thing and if there is ever civil unrest this will be at the center of it.
8Time to start passing laws to ensure that we have a well-regulated militia, as opposed to guns for everyone.
9@Nick Carraway—And yet, people still continue to elect those officials to state legislatures and Congress because “owning the libs” on cultural issues is more important to them.
10I read that repugnantican Paul Gosar from Arizona claimed in a tweet this morning that the Uvalde shooter was an illegal alien, transgender leftist. He didn’t even use the thoughts and prayers line. He’ll get re-elected to congress again. No wonder reasonable gun control legislation never goes anywhere.
11I’m sure the reason we have drivers licenses, insurance and traffic laws is because enough bad drivers killed people with cars in the early 20th century. When will we get laws to protect us from bad gun owners?
12I just wandered over to the NRA website to see what kind of condolences were being extended to the victims. Huh, no mention of the shootings at all. But splashed on the landing page is an invitation to attend a show of 14 acres of guns and gear at the George R. Brown convention Center this weekend. Unfortunately, i fear business will be brisk. Nothing like recent bloodshed to stoke sales.
13Beto has it right, this is all on Abbott, Paxton, and Dan patrick. They may as well have pulled the trigger themselves. There’s absolutely no way that an 18-year-old should be able to buy a gun period.
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