Hey friends. I haven't posted on the blog for a long time for a myriad of reasons, the strongest being extreme laziness. I actually wrote a post about this earlier this morning but I'm not going to post it until tomorrow (or more than likely Monday) because I really want to discuss the events of the last 24 hours. Also, consider this your warning that this post is going to be a bit more serious and a lot more political than my usual "WHY CAN'T I GET TACOS AT 7 AM?!!!" style rants.
By now everyone has heard about the tragedy that happened in Aurora, Colorado. During a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises a lunatic walked in and started shooting people indiscriminately with a shotgun, an assault rifle and some pistols. 12 people were killed and 59 were injured as of the last time I looked at the news, the actual numbers have been fluctuating all day long. It is horrifying to think about.
In this day and age the first thing anybody does when they hear news is to head to their Facebook, blog, Twitter, MyFace or whatever the hell they use for social media and weigh in on the issue. Obviously I am doing this so I don't want to cast too much aspersion on people for doing so. That being said I have no trouble taking down people based on their opinion. There was one opinion that I saw expressed multiple places that infuriates me so much that it makes me see red and want to hulk out. People are arguing that if people were allowed to carry concealed firearms tragedies like this would not happen.
I'm going to repeat it one more time so that you can think about it for a second and let it sink in: People are arguing that if people were allowed to carry concealed firearms tragedies like this would not happen.
Allow me to retort with a counter point: FUCK YOU.
How is making that argument any different than arguing that a woman got raped because she "was asking for it" by the way she was dressed? It's not. Bringing up the issue of concealed weapons in a situation such as this is basically stating that if you get shot it's your fault for not arming yourself. Who the hell would want to live in a society like that? Isn't basic safety and escaping a life based on violence the reason that people got together and created governments and society?
I understand that gun control is always a hot topic and people like to take any incident they can to argue their point but give me a fucking break. To politicize the issue hours after such a tragedy is remarkably classless in itself. Yet there is something even more revolting about taking a tragedy caused by guns and using it to argue for the further proliferation of guns.
I don't want to get on my soapbox and argue against guns, that's not the point I'm trying to make. Sure, I believe that we should have insanely tight gun control laws and that the most important part of the Second Amendment is the first part stating that guns are necessary in order to maintain a well regulated militia (a notion that is past it's time since we have a full time military). The point I am trying to make is that it is callous and inhumane to take a tragedy like what happened in Aurora and to boil it down to a talking point in arguing for the legality of concealed firearms. It comes across as blaming every victim for failing to defend themselves. It's easy to blame a whole spectrum of things for the tragedy: lax gun laws on assault weapons, a society that glorifies violence, poor parenting, a failure to identify mental issues and provide treatment for them, etc. I have already read all of those today and I'm sure that I will read many more over the coming weeks and I'm willing to have a thoughtful discussion about each and every one of them.
The one group that I absolutely will not blame are the victims for failing to have their own guns to defend themselves. If we have reached a point in this society where you should be expected to be packing heat to attend a movie then we have truly lost everything and should just give up.
My thoughts go out to all of the victims in Aurora and all of their family and friends.
I don't think gun nuts are blaming the victims, I think they are just exploiting this situation for their own political gain (which is also disgusting). Furthermore, their rant is pointless, because you can get concealed carry permits in Colorado. IL is the only state where concealed weapons are prohibited entirely.
ReplyDeleteI don't think they INTEND to be blaming the victims. I just don't think you can make that argument without doing so.
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