All hail the mighty gun, master of us all.
It does seem that the number of Republicans giving away guns
has been considerably elevated of late.
Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), 2014: The US Senate candidate gave away a Colt AR-15 and a Colt Marine Corps 1911 Rail Pistol to two members of his email list.
South Carolina state Sen. Lee Bright, 2014: Bright, who is challenging Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), is handing out an AR-15 from Palmetto State armory to a member of his email list. [...]
Former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), 2014: The former presidential candidate and current Colorado gubernatorial contender is teaming up with Ted Nugent—who once told his rivals to "suck on my machine gun"—to hand out an AR-15 to one supporter (no donations necessary).
Colorado state Sen. Greg Brophy, 2014: Not to be outdone by Tancredo, his rival for the gubernatorial nomination is offering a Smith & Wesson M&P15—personally modified by the candidate, to one lucky member of his email list. "I tricked this baby out with all the MagPul stuff you can add!" he explains. [...]
Maryland Del. Don Dwyer, 2013: He raffled off an AR-15 and an AK-47 at "Delegate Dwyer's Gun Rights and Liberty BBQ Gun Raffle, Auction & Strategy Meeting."
Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas), 2013: Stockman, who advocated using liberals' tears as a gun lubricant, gave away an AR-15 on the Fourth of July to entice people to sign up for his email list. [...]
The AR-15 seems to be the most popular prize, presumably because the base is especially keen on guns that have been associated with famous mass murders; AK-47s pop up from time to time as well, for those folks that prefer their guns have a little Red Army flair. But the practice in general seems to have taken off since the recent mass murders in Newtown and Aurora. Politicians have been especially keen on being seen with guns, being seen shooting guns, and giving guns to other people ever since.
It's curious. It used to be the practice that, after every mass murder, all the gun-fetishist politicians and lobbyists and hangers-on would say how sorry they were that it happened but warn that now was not the time to talk about our nation's gun policies. Now there's not even much pretense of caring. Instead of now is not the time, the latest shootouts and murders and daily "accidents" in which some child finds his parent's loaded gun and shoots another child are met with a more belligerent this is our culture, deal with it line. Rather than wondering how to stop such things from happening, the politicians hold contests and give out the guns used by the killers. If a bunch of lunatics who do not recognize the authority of the federal government arm themselves to the teeth and prepare for a shootout with federal agents enforcing laws they do not like, Sean Hannity will devote an approving segment to the lunatics' cause.
The Newtown murder of elementary school children in their classrooms may have been a turning point. Not the one a sane society might have expected, one in which we confront how such things could happen and, at long last, how to stop them, but one that was so monstrous that it became impossible in the mind to both feign sorrow for the murdered and simultaneously defend the killer's supposedly unfettered right to the weapons. So the fetishists stopped feigning sorrow. We chose the guns over the victims, and we've been doing so ever more proudly and insistently of late. And the politicians have decided that the daily victims are not their constituents, but the guns are.