On some days I wish I were this brave....
More after the squiggle.
About to go see a movie which will likely to be packed and I just had the notion that I should stand up at the front of the theater after the movie ends, raise my hands in the air and shout.
"Had I wanted to I could have walked into this theater armed to teeth. I'm not. I have no weapons. Had I had a hand grenade I could have taken out maybe 10, 15 of you. But had I had an assault weapon with large multiple clips with hundreds of rounds of ammunition, something I could purchase without background check at a local gun show, something I could have hidden under a large coat, I could have taken out all of you. Hand grenades are not allowed in our society. The gun is. Think about that as you leave as 20 children don't show up Christmas morning at homes in Connecticut."
The irony is I'd probably be shot. Here in Arizona, I'd at least be shouted down by hard core right wing nuts who'd never let me finish. The police would be waiting outside for me and I'd be arrested and thrown in Joe Arpaio's jail for creating a public disturbance. But it might be a wakeup call for those viewers that, because of our love of incredible killing machines and our fear and loathing of all around us, they could have been victims themselves.
Those theater goers and my son and his wife don't deserve their movie experience ruined by me fulfilling this righteous fantasy. But damn if this thought didn't nearly make it to the action center of my brain. I am so angry right now, so disturbed by the NRA, Mike Huckabee, the Westboro Baptist Church, the wingnuts that are beginning to show up on blogs and news sites with their bullshit "An armed society is a polite society" and "had those teachers been armed they would have stopped him." and "the shooting happened because we took God out of our schools.". I want to slap these people. I want to hear it shouted from the rooftops, from every person with a microphone or lecturn, at every lunch break in corporate America, every holiday dinner table when Uncle ShitForBrains starts on his rant. "No more! We're not going away this time. America is changing and you can't stop it."
I won't stand up in that theater today but those days are coming if this stuff continues. We still are responsible citizens and we saw a tiny step forward in the last election. Yesterday was our wake up call for the next, and the next, and the next after that. If those don't work then my pathway from the emotional and outrage part of my brain to the action center loses its traffic lights.