three more children are dead
three more children are dead
it doesn't fucking matter who pulled the trigger
here’s what we know: a person obtained multiple weapons of mass death, just as our founders intended, brought those weapons into a school, just as our founders intended, used those weapons to murder three children and three adults, just as our founders intended, and was shot dead by police, just as our founders intended.
it was a perfectly normal tragedy and all the usual shitheads did their little kabuki dances of tut-tutting and faux concern.
all the stupid shit that gets said after mass shootings got said again: it’s not the guns, it’s that schools have too many doors and too few armed teachers. video games. single mothers. yadda yadda, you could recite this stuff in your sleep.
but then late in the day, rumors (unconfirmed as of this writing) circulated that the shooter was trans.
and the worst people in the world jumped out of their chairs and high-fived themselves in an outburst of spontaneous unbridled joy.
because a trans shooter proved … what?
it doesn’t matter what. all the rules of the game fly out the window when the shooter is from a group you hate.
the conversation was no longer about guns.
the conversation became “look at what one of those people did. we warned you about those people and you didn’t listen to us and now look at what has happened because of those people.”
the dipshits got the distraction they needed to completely derail the discourse.
a Muslim friend once told me that, for years after 9-11, every time there was a national tragedy, the first question her community asked was, “is the perpetrator a Muslim?” and then they would breathe a sigh of relief when it wasn’t, because it meant that they could all get on with their lives and not be the focus of increased hatred.
so now the trans community has one more thing to worry about. just fucking great.
in the end, it doesn’t matter who pulls the trigger. what matters is how easy it is to get the trigger into that person’s hands. what matters is that three more children are dead, and our country won’t do a fucking thing to keep this from happening again. and again.
So many Republican officials in Tennessee have embraced the AR-15 and the NRA that their useless thoughts and prayers seem particularly odious today. Sweet Jesus, how shattered must we be before decency prevails? There is no answer. Only a deafening silence.
I have come to the opinion that the argument for safety must change. Rather than "Gun Control" why not say that ALL weapons must be treated like owning an automobile? After all, cars don't kill people but people do so:
1. All weapons manufacturers must carry massive amounts of liability insurance . This like automobiles would be passed through to the customer.
2. All weapons with magazines with more than 3 shots or of a certain length and a certain caliber must be sold with trigger locks. Every one of them.
3. All owners must purchase a license for each and every weapon in their possession. Each weapon would be required to be registered with the State where the weapon is kept under lock and key. Each weapon would have to be insured for liability like all automobiles. A million dollar policy per weapon in the event someone steals said weapon. No exceptions!
4. If a weapon is then somehow taken out of locked storage, then used in a illegal manner and the person using the weapon and found guilty of such an illegal manner, the owner of the weapon would be subject to fines and automatic imprisonment of not less than five years
without parole or pardon.
In this manner we are not banning gun ownership but just like automobiles we are taking measures to make said guns less deadly to humans.