I don't think I'm going to say anything particularly insightful here, so if you're looking for something smart on this topic, go read what
Josh Marshall had to say about gun violence in the American political realm. This is a straight rant from my head; no links to sources or anything.
As I'm sure most of you know, the maniac who shot Steve Scalise today was a Bernie Sanders volunteer. I don't blame Bernie at all for this -- I know he's gotten an A rating at some point or another from the NRA, but violence is not what he's about. I've been over him for a while, but I see him more as a brat than a bad guy.
I just rarely write or talk about guns. I don't think that I've ever written one word on this blog about gun violence in eight months doing this. But I do feel extremely strongly about this. Republicans ran around for eight years under Obama screaming about him taking guns away from Americans. Yet, he barely changed gun laws at all during his two terms. Obama was not a gun grabber. Hillary Clinton would not have been a gun grabber. I don't think there's a Democrat with any real national profile at this point (where have you gone, Carolyn McCarthy?) who would do that, or even whisper in that direction.
But I would be a gun grabber. Conservative America, I want to take your guns away. Every last one. Liberals with guns, you too. Follow the bible. Swords into plowshares (what's a plowshare?), guns into, well, I don't know... cock rings?
You don't need a gun for self defense. We all know the stats on that. You don't need to kill your own food; what you spend on guns and ammo could buy an awful lot of meat. In the context of Trumpcare, Jason Chaffetz ran his mouth about people giving up iPhones for healthcare. Well, a gun is a much more extravagant and impractical use of money than a smartphone. Trade in your gun for an iPhone. And no, even if the government were coming after you, your gun isn't a match for the American military. That's just silly.
Guns are for killing, or at least maiming. No other intended use.
So, back to Bernie Sanders for a minute. We know we, including me, give him a pass for the A rating from the NRA is that "Well, he's from Vermont." And that's right. That's probably why a liberal guy like Bernie would support gun "rights" is because he needs to do so to get reelected.
Think about that for a minute. An entire U.S. state (well, several) cares so much about owning a product whose only purpose is to kill that talking about how maybe if we were to try to reduce the amount of killing in this country by removing deathsticks from the equation is a career-ender for a politician. I don't write about it for this reason. It's just a nonstarter in most of America. There are many reasons why that's the case, but I don't think I need to go into them. This may, in fact, be the only time you ever see me write about guns.
Anyway, the purpose of this post is just to get on the record and say:
This is fucked up.
