The GOP's numerous NRA supporters are still flailing about like a bunch of fish that have suddenly found out that their pro-gun dogma is in a rapidly-draining bathtub of public support.
(note: Most initial information sourced from the New York Times' Caucus post of this morning)
In a desperate attempt to ensure that real reforms never make it to President Obama's desk, Republicans are firing an open volley in the new culture wars, declaring war on abortion and video games. Republican Governor John Kasich of Ohio (who has been a jerk long before the Teabaggers came onto the scene, but hitched himself onto the Teabagger movement about two seconds after he first heard the words "birth certificate"), "still intends to sign" legislation that would allow concealed weapons in the State Capitol's garages in Downtown Columbus. Gov. Kasich:
There are a range of issues at play here involving mental health, school security and a culture that at times fails to reject the glorification of violence that can desensitize us to the sanctity and majesty of life ... Going forward, we need to pay close attention to what the experts conclude from this incident in order to see if there are lessons to be learned and applied here in Ohio.
(emphasis added)
So apparently American culture isn't quite as perfect as the Republicans would have us believe, ne?
Follow me below the orange HP potion for more.
So I'm curious - do they actually believe this stuff? I'm an extremely avid console gamer, including console games such as the long-infamous Grand Theft Auto series (I just finished Assassin's Creed III - wonderful game, go play it!), and I haven't shot up any public places yet; in fact, I actually haven't shot anything other than an empty can of soda at Boy Scout camp. On the one hand, I'm a research-driven person, and if someone can show me strong research that shows that playing violent video games as a youth turns you into a mass-murdering deviant, I'm open to listening to that evidence. Having said that, violence has been around for thousands of years. For hundreds of years on the frontier, violence against native peoples was horrifically trivialized. For hundreds of years before that, we sent children into battle without a serious thought about whether or not their minds were being screwed up.
And yet I'm to believe that, after a remarkably violent millennium, it took Rockstar Games to flip some sort of instinctual switch in these people? Still, I'm open to being convinced.
The quiet reference to abortion, of course, doesn't even merit a reply.
But in the meanwhile, while the Republicans suddenly discover that American culture perhaps wasn't everything they hyped it up to be, we ignore the most obvious option - deny access to the most deadly weapons available on the market, weapons that have no other use but to kill many people in a very short amount of time.
On the BBC Newshour today (sorry, no names to cite, I was wrestling a Boston Terrorist, er, Terrier into the bathtub) the English interviewer somewhat incredulously interviewed a Southerner (Kentucky, I believe) who is still a firearms aficionado even after Adam Lanza murdered 20 young children plus 6 teachers and administrators, who admitted what we all know - there is no purpose whatsoever to the sorts of high-capacity, high-velocity, high-death toll weapon used in Connecticut.
So this individual's defense for said ownership of uniquely deadly firearms? He indicates that the only or main reason (as I heard from a fur-filled bathtub) was that he wanted to be able to challenge the government at some undetermined time in the future when the government was not to his liking.
Ignoring for a moment that even an AR-15 doesn't have very good odds against a tank, let alone a cruise missile, is this the kind of country we want to live in? Where, after the people make a choice for president, an armed minority enjoys a blood-soaked veto power, the ability to overthrow him or her in order to preserve - and forcibly impose - sacred conservatism?
Forget the heckler's veto - this is the Terrorist's Veto.