The Rude Pundit - Re-Post: Of Course It's the Guns. It's Always the Guns.

[meegbear]

(This is a repost from a month ago because there's very little left to say. One word has been added: Lafayette, which is the Rude Pundit's hometown.)

We know, right? We know that, at the end of the discussion, after we've talked about racism and hatred and mental illness, what remains are the guns. No, you won't get rid of racism and hatred and mental illness by taking the guns away, but nothing will ever get rid of that. Those aren't tangible things. Ideas can't be taken out of someone's hands, alive and warm or cold and dead, melted down, and eliminated.

But guns can be.

Guns amplify the racism, foster hatred, and give an easy outlet to the mentally ill. The sad part is that we know this. We know it to be true. Even the vast majority of people who cling to the belief that only guns can stop guns understand the equation. Easy access to guns means more murder.

But we are so afraid. Politicians are afraid of the NRA. Gun owners are afraid of government power. Everyone is told to be afraid of their neighbors, the black guy walking down the street, the Muslims in front of a mosque. And that fear has made us hold to our guns, if not in actuality then in support of mild laws and compromising politicians.

Yet reality demonstrates again and again that, mostly, the fear is over nothing, over a lie. There's never a good guy with a gun around when you need one. And, no, more guns won't solve that.

This post is absent of facts. It's absent of links. It's absent of stated context, although you know what the reference points are. They have become a mantra of places: Lafayette, Charleston, Newtown, Aurora, and many more already part of the chant and many more to be added.

This blogger has grown weary of the depraved ignorance that has taken the place of rational discussion. He's long been amazed at how people who are wary of the motives of the government they elected don't have any suspicions of the organizations and corporations who only answer to the dollar. Very little surprises him anymore, not even this latest massacre.

It is who we are. It is a price to pay for freedom, we are told. And yet, somehow, we are less and less free.

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2015/07/re-post-of-course-it-guns-it-always-guns.html

[MisterP]

1. that last part is what tightens the circle: the less free--and more threatened

by violence--people feel, the more they'll want something that's equated with freedom and independence and safety

it's almost "talismanic," like that woman at Luby's who was so darn-fired sure there'd be fewer dead had she been packing; it's also why Selleck implied that guns helped the Aborigines IRL after Quigley Down Under (also because he's as nutterbutter as Rip Torn but in a different direction)

the real danger is that we'll just get used to it, that it'll just become part of the background and thus acceptable at some level, or as less of a priority (after all, the chances are quite low!), until we just can't imagine living any other way like it's a natural disaster

[daleanime]

2. Very little to be said....

[Martin Eden]

3. "amazed at how people who are wary of the motives of the government they elected ..."

"... don't have any suspicions of the organizations and corporations who only answer to the dollar."

Spot-On, R.P.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

4. "Guns amplify the racism, foster hatred, and give an easy outlet to the mentally ill."

Do tell.





The only problem, these are the guys you're counting on to disarm everyone else.