I was going to focus on Pride Month in this column. That was the plan and the LGBTQ+ community certainly deserves it — that will be the next column (which will still be in June). But when 19 school kids are shot and killed, plus two adults, while at school no less, plans change.
On this occasion, it was an 18-year-old who shot his grandmother in the face before slaughtering the children in Uvalde, TX, while the police decided that the best use of their time was restraining parents outside. It was the latest devastating, heartbreaking episode of mass gun violence in this country.
When things like this happen, two distinct types of people emerge: those who grip their children tighter (with BOTH hands), and those who grip their guns tighter. No surprise that one of the fuckwits falling into the latter category is Marjorie Taylor Greene — that wretched sore on politics’ filthy ass. “We don’t need more gun control. We need to return to God,” she tweeted in response to the massacre. Later, she attempted to smear the LGBTQ+ community by labeling the shooter (we won’t say his name because he doesn’t deserve our space) as transgender, something uncompetely untrue. If it had been true, it would have been irrelevant anyway.
Ted Cruz, that melting Dalí painting of an already-grotesque creature, placed the blame on the number of doors in schools. “Less doors, less access” was his point, forgetting that, in a fire, less doors means less exits and complete chaos. Goddammit, Ted Cruz is a fucking moron.
Children are just getting used to going back to in-person school after COVID, and they’re once again fearing for their lives because of the lack of sensible gun control in this country. The solution from the right? Arm the teachers, and place armed guards in the school. Think about that for a minute. Rather than risk losing their precious guns, these fucking cockroaches want to make our schools like a damned warzone.
What first world country needs armed guards in their schools? “More guns” is always their answer, because it’s a fetish.
Today we are sending this letter to every member of Congress pleading with them to act and help end gun violence. #BetheChange #DontLookAway pic.twitter.com/KWb5Eb1Z0K
— USMNT (@USMNT) June 5, 2022
There have been plenty of sensible responses too, from good people. The US Men’s National Soccer Team, which will be playing in front of the entire globe at the World Cup this winter, sent a letter to every member of the Senate and Congress, pleading for stricter gun control. They also wore an orange armband in protest during the recent game against Uruguay.
“It’s sometimes easy to get caught up in our little world and what we’re doing and then you forget about what’s happening in the outside world, but this group certainly didn’t do that,” coach Gregg Berhalter told the BBC. “And you saw the letter and the orange armbands. And everyone’s just tired, and it’s good that this group is asking for action and asking people to make change, and being the change is something we’ve been part of for a while now.”
Within the music world, you can always rely on Ted Nugent to be a prick.
“And to those who think that we need more gun control, who could possibly be so heartless and stupid to think that someone committed to murdering innocent lives would give a rat’s ass about another gun restriction, President Biden? How heartless. How soulless. How cruel. How dishonest,” he said on his vomit-inducing and honestly pure evil YouTube channel.
Stevie Nicks is far smarter: “My hope for this country is that the lawmakers just find a way to make buying an assault rifle ~ more difficult,” she posted on Twitter. “There is just no reason to have a gun that would disintegrate a deer, or a small animal, if you are, indeed, an honorable hunter. When those guns go into the hands of obviously disturbed people, it gives them a sense of unbelievable power that they have never felt before. Power, used in a bad way, is the opposite of ‘power’ used in a good way. Once people have felt the power of those guns, they are never the same. They are addicted. And then there is no turning back.”
Meanwhile, Jack White released a statement saying, “As we tour in Texas these past few days, I can’t help but to feel saddened in so many ways about the latest in a long line of mass shootings, but mostly I’m exhausted. Exhausted with the ignorant excuses about the inability to fix this problem, exhausted with people clinging to their political party or their ‘side’ instead of looking at the issue. Exhausted with people whining about their ‘freedom’ being more important than rules that help save lives. Like the traffic light on the road, and the warning label on poison, or the regulation of who can buy sticks of dynamite or own a surface to air missile, we already have rules, haven’t you noticed? So how about a few more rules then that ALSO save lives and protect us from harm? Maybe rules that save your own children or loved ones lives some day?”
Most people calling for gun control are not calling for an outright ban on guns. They just want to make it harder to buy assault rifles — the sort of weapons that were not conceived of when the Second Amendment to the Constitution was written. Me, personally, I would like to see a complete ban on guns. The notion that a ban wouldn’t work because “not everyone would follow the law” is nonsense because that same logic could be applied to anything. Make heroin legal because people are using it anyway. Make theft legal because people are stealing anyway. Dumb shit.
There’s also the gun nut’s logic that the people should have the same weapons as the authorities, so that we can “rise up against a tyrannical government.” So that means we should have grenade launchers, nukes, etc? So stupid.
But I’m also a realist and resigned to the fact that a full ban is extremely unlikely. Stricter gun control is more feasible and in fact, right now, is being negotiated in congress. Even perpetual pain in his own party’s groin Joe Manchin seems open to it. Fingers crossed.
The facts are that nobody involved in the Constitution knew what was to come. The world evolves, sometimes devolves, but we have to allow for common sense. That’s why there are amendments to begin with. Lest we forget, originally the Constitution said that Black people were three fifths of a person. So originists can fuck right off.
Even if the document were entitled “The Constitution and Your Right to Wave an Assault Rifle About”, your guns are not as important as the life of a child.
