I'm going to make a prediction: there will be no rally from Wayne LaPierre and his Hestonites to point out how more loaded guns in the hands of "responsible" gun owners would have stopped the Binghamton massacre.
The targets were largely immigrants (although "real" Americans were also victims), and the shooting was done by an immigrant. You know it - and you can't bring yourself to think it and I don't blame you -
The RWingers are throwing parties about what happened in Binghamton.
For my first twelve years, my mom would drop me off at my Aunt Marie's house, which was about eight blocks where this shooting took place. I'm very dark and cold and sick inside about all of this. It's too close to what was once my real home.
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I just want to ask you to keep your eyes and ears open for the lack of outrage from the Right Wing over this shooting.
Virginia Tech? More guns would have stopped that, they said. Responsible gun owners, with a sidearm on their person at all times would have been Johnny on the Spot to save any if not all at Virginia Tech.
Let's see if the same advocates for concealed-carry make their case again this time around.
I hear crickets.
Those who read my stuff know I'm dark and solemn when I'm not ranting and outraged. This killing is carving out my soul in ways I can't really describe; the best I can do is show you the comment I wrote in an open-thread the night it happened. Binghamton used to be my home; where I live now is only two hours from there, and the house my mom used to drop me off at when she ran errands once stood about eight blocks from where the massacre happened.
I'm too bewildered and grim right now to put up the links for you; I'm in a denial of my own because my emotions are strong and I know I can paint myself into a bad state of mind. But you've got Google News - count the number of shootings in the last two weeks; the last month, the last year.
How many of them were done by people who lost their jobs or couldn't find one?
In the Great Depression it was "brother, can you spare a dime" - this time around the slogan seems to be "FUCK IT!! SOMEONE WILL PAY!". This really is unfolding in front of us and each shooting is so horrible we cant' grasp how the larger pattern is unfolding.
And I want to ask you something: We're dealing with a political party that is reeling from a brutal defeat. Not just the election, but a demonstrable failure of the Reaganesque ideals of de-regulation and lower taxes that to the educated is undeniable. But to the uneducated who was told lower taxes would put more money in their pockets and regulation means fascism, do you believe they will ever blame their heroes?
Not a chance.
The Right Wing base which has been cultivated to say the things about Democrats which we heard during the election weren't faking it; they really are that rabid. But Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, Savage, Coulter, Malkin have built programmed drones who have kept their powder dry all these years because they were fed a dream that Republicans can make them all rich and happy with low taxes and no regulations.
Now, after that experiment blew up in all our faces, they have got the same people who lost everything believing that it was always liberals who made it happen; and they believe it is still liberals who caused their current plight and will keep it from recovering unless we follow the same Reagan dream.
This shooting in Binghamton, I am afraid is just the beginning, even though I admit it's nowhere near the first even in the latest string of them.
Remember - this was an immigrant who aimed at immigrants. The RW will wash their hands of this because it was not one of their own, and they will blame the Democrats because of course we use immigrants as pawns to win elections. I want you to watch for this.
Have you been able to keep track of all the other murders and murder/suicides in the last year? There have been at least three in the last two weeks and it looks like there was yesterday that was specifically about Obama and assault weapons, another one since we all went to sleep last night.
Help me - the Right is just going to dig deeper and amplify the messages that have brought us here - how do we stop this?