A fearful populace is an easily controlled populace. The GOP know this. The NRA knows this. They know, the more mass shootings that happen in America, the more often they can tell their fearful flocks that the way to prevent them is a good guy with a gun, so go buy more guns, more ammo and prevent the next shooting...which, oddly enough, never seems to happen. And, eventually, those “good guys” will turn to their guns to kill, prompting even more “go buy guns and ammo”. The more often these shootings take place in “safe spaces”, the more fearful the populace becomes. Is any place safe? No. How can we make places safe? You can’t, but if you buy a gun, you have a better chance of living, and the more guns, the better the chances (yay, now maybe Remington is saved!).
And whether you own a gun or not, you are going to have to wonder, every time you step out your door, whether a man with a gun (because how many women do the same thing? not very damn many. how many maniacs with a knife kill 17 before they’re stopped? not very damn many) is going to kill you from the street corner or enter your local store and unload because he’s upset his wife left him. Or he lost his job. Or just because he hates blacks or gays or Muslims. Or whatever. Even people who aren’t supposed to own guns end up owning guns, and what can be done about that (hint, hint, nothing), so you just need to hope and pray when you’re buying milk, that it isn’t the last thing you do on this earth.
Because it’s a (white) man’s god-given right to kill whomever they chose, whenever they chose, and there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop that before it happens. Their rage and their want to kill is far more important than the lives of their families, their co-workers, school children, concert goers, movie goers, church-goers, I-can’t-even-list-all-the-kinds-of-victims-there’s-too-many victims . Does that make you feel helpless? Does that make you want to hide? Pull your kids out of public school to protect them? Keep yourself secluded, so there’s less of a chance of death by bullet? No, don’t vote the GOP “thoughts and prayers” fake sympathy-riddled legislator out of office—it won’t fix anything. No, don’t try to pass stricter laws, that will only put guns in the hands of criminals. Don’t try to take the guns out of the hands of the mentally disabled, who, the GOP say, cause all these deaths because what good will that do? YOU, AS A CITIZEN OF THE US OF A, CAN DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO PREVENT GUN DEATHS SO DON’T EVEN TRY. Don’t call your reps and demand action. Don’t tell others that no other nation seems to have this problem—that means something can be done about gun violence, and, as we all know, NOTHING CAN BE DONE.
NOTHING CAN BE DONE.
NOTHING CAN BE DONE.
NOTHING CAN BE DONE.
Feel helpless yet?
I have a Facebook friend who is an avid gun owner. Rather than look into ways that might help prevent gun violence, like supporting limiting access to them, more training, and perhaps giving up a few of her own, she has vowed to withdraw her kids from school and homeschool them to protect them. So many commenters agreed. Yep, withdrawing children from society is the answer. Keeping them secluded is the answer. The less they interact with others, the safer they will be, right?--unless Dad goes bonkers and kills them all. Since doing anything to keep guns out of people’s hands will fail, it’s best to hide in your house. Be afraid. Collect guns because you will have to use them eventually (why else have them?). And, above all, don’t use this issue against legislators. They’re helpless, just like you, remember? There’s nothing they can do. Absolutely nothing, other than pass laws giving violent men more and more access to lethal weapons. Funny, how it can’t work the other way.
These money-hungry cowards know the more they reiterate that nothing can be done, people will begin to believe it. Live it. They’ll feel helpless. If they raise their voice in protest, it will go nowhere because one voice does not equal the millions lawmakers get from the NRA and pro-gun groups. You might as well live with it. And if you willingly live with thousands dying on the altar of gun violence, what else will you decide isn’t worth the bother, the fight? If a human life is worthless, what else is there to believe in? Who cares about Dreamers? Who cares about poor children eating? Who cares about healthcare caps and pre-existing condition survivors being denied medical care? Who cares about climate change? How can you possibly care, when nothing can ever be done about any difficult problem?
We here at Daily Kos know differently. We know that when people come together and fight, change happens. It may not be overnight, but it will happen because we work to make it happen. That scares the status-quo, the conservative, because having thousands die each year is the norm, and they don’t want it to change. Norm = comfortable. Tough. We’ll change it. We’ll donate to organizations that fight for our right to live gun-violence free. We’ll volunteer our time to help. We’ll donate to campaigns run by people who are willing to vote for life rather than death. We have a huge chance this November to see change, to elect people who don’t buy the “Nothing can be done” bullshit. We’ll even do the scary “talk to our relations”, ask them if owning a gun is really worth the lives of twenty 6 year olds and their educators, 58 concert goers, 17 high schoolers, and if they say yes, ask them why they are so morally bankrupt. It’s past time to change, and we need to elect officials that agree—at local, state and federal levels.
BTW, I come from a hunting family. I grew up with several guns in the house. I went through Hunter’s Safety Training in the ‘80s where over half the class failed, but were given their certificate just ‘cause (want to know why there’s so many hunting accidents? Bingo). In my experience, most people who own guns shouldn’t be permitted to even go near one. If you want to make exceptions for hunting weapons, fine, but in my experience, most of people who own them haven’t a clue how to properly use them, and no want to find out because OF COURSE they know how to handle a gun, they grew up with them (not a ringing endorsement). Nothing much has changed in this respect. A friend of mine sent me a podcast after the Vegas shooting produced by I-don’t-remember but I listened. The two men had gone to get training required for concealed carry permits, I think in Illinois(?). They laughed a lot at the incompetence of the group getting permits—a group where everyone passed the class despite their unsuitability to carry a weapon. They laughed about the high-strung guy that miraculously did not shoot himself during training, they laughed about the guy who asked questions to figure out how to get around concealed carry laws and carry more weapons than appropriate. These are your “good guys with a gun”—incompetents who shouldn’t come within a 1000 ft of a gun. Bet you feel safer now, don’t you. This is why I really believe very few people should ever have access to a gun, because even when they are supposed to be experts, they fail.