Kevin McCarthy rolled out the usual tropes in response to the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. WE CALL BS!
“The problem is video games.” WE CALL BS
- We can’t know whether that is true because YOU WON’T ALLOW ANY RESEARCH on the causes of gun violence go forward. So WE CALL BS.
- People all over the world play video games, and THEY DON’T COMMIT MASS MURDER BECAUSE OF THEM. WE CALL BS.
- My five year old grandson assures me he knows the difference between games and reality; I expect that is generally true. WE CALL BS
“The problem is mental health” WE CALL BS.
- Murder is mostly criminal and often targeted to relatives and acquaintances to revenge imaginary wrongs, e.g. workplaces and Columbine. Suicides are often caused by mental health issues like depression.
- But most mass killings are caused by ideology. From John Brown and Quantrell’s Raiders to Japanese kamikaze pilots to German death camps to Cambodian killing fields to Islamic suicide bombers to the Unabomber to the Manson Family to Oklahoma City to New Zealand to El Paso; these are politically motivated acts perceived by their perpetrators as acts of war against enemies and oppressors.
“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” WE CALL BS.
- People with guns kill people. Countries with stricter gun controls have far fewer deaths from gun violence than the US. The major difference is the prevalence of an American gun culture.
“The Second Amendment is intended to give Americans the ability to protect against tyranny and foreign invasion.” WE CALL BS.
- The second amendment was put in place to allow outnumbered southern slave owners to put down slave revolts.
- There has never been an example of a foreign invader driven out by local guerilla actions. In every case, guerillas were either defeated (e.g. Malaya) or heavily supported by outside forces (US versus Soviets in Afghanistan; US and Britain versus Germans in WW 2; Viet Cong supported by Russian and China.) Even the American War of Independence against Britain would have been lost without French support.
- When black men exercise lawful Second Amendment rights, the police tend to kill them. The opposite of “Black Lives Matter” is not “White Lives Matter.” It is “Black Lives Don’t Matter.”