Well, its hardly been enough time for the cordite smoke to clear, and the blood to dry on the school corridors of Sandy Hook. Its too soon apparently, as usual, to talk about gun control, but already we are seeing the usual brain dead talking heads of politics and media punditry, as well as those ever reliable douche bags of the Religious Right aka the Religulous Reich, lining up that ever reliable and well trodden list of Reasons Why America Is Spree Shooter Heaven.
Follow me below the orange croissant of love if you will while Uncle Sandman takes you for a tiptoe through the tulips.
1) Its Because Of Violence in Media Like Films and Video Games.
This is a perennial, trotted out regularly by empty headed doofuses in all spectra of the Axis of Stupid. You Americans live in a Spree Shooter Heaven because those durned kids are growing up watching violent films and playing those first person ultra realistic shoot em ups on their Wee Boxes.
OK. So.... if that is the case why, when Canadian and British kids, as well as kids all across Europe play and watch the same games and films are there not the same amount of shooting incidents? In fact the UK censors often pass films and cut them less than US censors do. Dont believe me? Check out the "Alternative Versions" listings on IMDB - you will often see that European releases are less cut and are longer. we don't have a hissy fit when a nipple slips, and we don't cack our kecks when some shmo gets a screwdriver in the earole.
Then of course there is Japan. As a fan of Asian Cinema let me assure you that some Japanese cinema is so ultra violent it cant get released in the USA. Take a watch of films like MUTANT GIRL SQUAD, TOKYO GORE POLICE or MACHINE GIRL and then show me the US equivalent in terms of violence. There aint any. And you should check out the video games they play. Yet Japan has shooting incidents per year you can count on one, maybe two hands.
So if ultra violent games and films are driving American kids kill crazy...why are the same or worse films and games not having the same effect on kids in other developed countries?
Hmmmmm..... maybe cos that assertion is pure blue ribbon BULLSHIT.
Of course, any comic book fanboy can tell you its the same sad sack bullshit that was behind the Horror Comic Bans back in the 60s. Same song, different choir.
2) Its Because We Took God Out Of Schools
The usual theocratic scum opportunists of the religious right, from the floating pond scum like Mike Huckabee to the real bottom feeders crawling in the slime like Brian Fisher of the AFA have been screeching this since the news hit the screens. Variants include its cos we dont put the fear of God into kids that they go batshit with guns, to its God punishing America for becoming a more secular nation and y'know, sort of making that clause in the 1st Amendment actually mean what it says.
So, this petulant spiteful genocidal murderer deity you worship decided to kill a school full of kids because a bunch of adults they had no connection with decided that maybe making all the kids pray to him, whether they were his flock or not, was wrong and illegal. Or not filling their young and impressionable minds with bronze age sado-masochistic snuff porn fantasies about being good or burning in torment for all eternity is maybe the reason they grow up to be killers?
OK.... so why is it that the more secular and atheistic states in the west have nowhere near the same amount of gun killing incidents? The UK for example? Or Sweden? Breivik aside how about Norway? Or Iceland? Spain even? France, Germany....on and on and on. Less religious, more secular, hardly any gun crime compared to the USA.
So far I have not read any comments like those from Rick Warren post Aurora that linked spree shooting to teaching kids evolution (cos when we teach kids that they are animals they act like animals....derpy derpy derp). Well Rick, and anyone else who says that..... travel to the UK or even better stay the hell at home but get hold of a British Ten Pound Note. See that bloke on the back. That's DARWIN that is. We teach evolution as a core science topic from the age of 12 onwards....and we don't have anywhere near the same amount of animals gong batshit with shooters.
Ah....that's right. Cos attaching real world problems to an imaginary friend up in the sky and his moving in very mysterious ways indeed is again, pure blue ribbon BULLSHIT.
And while we are on about this spiteful petulant murderous bastard deity you worship who loves killing innocents....what are you? A Fecking Aztec?
Why the flying feck should I even think of worshiping this mad ass kiddy killer?
And if being a good god fearing Krystyhun stops you killing people, why are most of the murderers and criminals in prison Krystyhuns, including all the abortion clinic staff killers and bombers? And wasn't old Tim McVeigh brought up a Krystyhun? And the Unabomber....and the Olympic Bomber....and the ... on and on and on.
3) Its Because America Has More Mental People.
No, no, no. Yes by pure numbers you may have, but by head of population you will have roughly the same amount of mentally ill people as every where else. That, or there is something seriously wrong with the US gene pool.
In the UK we had this policy called Care In The Community. It was the usual shell game pulled by the Conservative Party to allow them to cut down on healthcare expenditure by turfing the less mentally ill out of care and into the "community"...or in real terms out onto the streets. Yes, in one or two cases there followed spree violence as a result, where one of these poor confused people blew a gasket and went bonkers with a knife or a screwdriver. And yes there were deaths as a result. BUT... NO spree shootings, and NO frequent incidences. And the kicker? After a really bad incident where I lived in London (Tottenham) and some bystanders died, the program was scrapped, heads rolled, and things went back to the way they were...and the next election the C*ntservatives were kicked out of office.
Now....what you choose to do with mentally ill people is your own choice. But as one diarist wrote here recently about his poor deranged mate, maybe when they get released from care allowing them to own a gun, or even worse have a confiscated one returned to them is a bit like sitting on a keg of black powder smoking a stogie. You light that cigar up chief and take a seat.... I will go stand waaaay over there and watch.
NOW
This list is open to being supplemented, my US chums, as your empty headed despicable shower of bastards pull ever more rabbits from the hat, but I hope I have shown you the easy way to shut that bullshit down. Cos blabbering bullshit and muddying the waters of reason is a sure fire tried and tested tactic of the gun nuts and their facilitator scum mates to divert the attention away from the real problem, or do a Pontius Pilate act and wipe their hands whilst denying any responsibility for nailing that bloke to a tree.
Its easy... just point out the correct fact that the same factors apply in all the rest of the developed world states...yet they don't have the same problems you have with spree shooters and gun crime.
You then take one small step for sanity and add the QED
ITS ABOUT THE F*CKING GUNS !
1:27 AM PT: UPDATE - Addendum to Its Because Of Violence in Media Like Films and Video Games.
Consider the news media you US chums and your kids watch. You think its violent and graphic. WRONG. US broadcast media is demonstrably more heavily censored than any other western state in Europe. It is less graphic. End of argument.
I live in Thailand. Here the news and print media regularly show such graphic images of death and destruction even my hard old eyes turn away and think "Holy feck...." And in Thailand there are a good few guns in circulation, both legal and illegal. YET.... nowhere near as much gun crime. Hmmmmmmmm.
Smell The Bullshit?
Wed Dec 19, 2012 at 11:41 PM PT: Well....I was right. The list now seems to include
LGBT rights and the struggle for equality
Evolution
Obamacare
Welfare/Social Security
(insert progressive cause here)
and now possibly paintball games