Maybe I’m missing something here, and maybe I’m not. But when two of the worst mass shootings we have had recently both take place in Texas, the pro-gun noisemakers have no choice but to come up with some kind of narrative which will go beyond the usual ‘thoughts and prayers.’
A year ago, 22 were killed and another 18 were injured when an 18-year-old walked into an elementary school in Uvalde, TX and began blasting away. This past week, a 33-year-old turned an outdoor mall near Dallas into a shooting gallery and before he was shot down by the cops, 8 people were dead and another 7 were injured, all of the latter may survive but maybe not.
In the ‘olden’ days, like maybe two or three years ago, there would be a bad shooting somewhere and this would be followed by a hullabaloo from both sides that would last a couple of days. The libs would say that we needed to pass better laws, the righties would say that we need to enforce the laws we already had on the books.
But now the current narrative on both sides of the gun debate is all about finding ‘solutions’ to the problem of gun violence, and the appearance of the word ‘solutions’ marks a new phase in the gun debate.
Who’s got a solution? For the first time we start getting solutions from the alt-right side. It started off with none other than Marjorie Taylor Greene who says she is praying for the victims but is also praying for “an end to the mental illness, drugs, and evil forces that cause people to commit such horrors.”
Know what causes mass shootings according to MTG? “We need to study SSRI’s and other factors that cause mass shootings,” she says, and “the federal government must partner with states for mental hospitals and drug rehab centers.”
Now wait just one goddamn minute! Marjorie Taylor Greene is actually saying that the federal government, the federal government controlled by George Soros and the rest of those money-hungry, Jew bastard internationalists should get involved with something being done by the states?
But when it comes to the alt-right suddenly doing a flip-flop on gun violence and actually talking about doing something beyond thoughts and prayers, another voice was heard from in the form of Megyn Kelly, who accused gun-control advocates of not getting anything done (which is actually true, btw) and here’s her plan to effect some real change: “Mental health interventions (smthg real, not the BS we now do), greater willingness to lock ppl up (w/protocols in place for civil libs) who are deemed to be threats, fortification of soft targets, coordination of media response to not lionize shooters, etc.”
But if that’s not enough of a plan, try this one instead: “We need a mental health facility that is secure (guards/locked down) but still humane enough that a loving parent would send her kid there, for one. Right now, parents who know they’re raising the next school shooter have next to no recourse.”
How can anyone actually say something so friggin’ dumb? How can anyone appeal to all those ‘loving parents’ out there who just know ahead of time that their kid is going to grab the family assault rifle, walk into the local supermarket or shopping mall and start blasting away?
The problem is that gun violence will probably be a major issue on the political agenda and the voting agenda next year. And the GOP is going to take it in the ass if they just keep rolling out the ol’ ‘thoughts and prayers’ routine.
Here’s all that Ted Cruz had to say about the latest mass shooting: “Heidi and I are praying for the families of the victims of the horrific mall shooting in Allen, Texas. We pray also for the broader Collin County community that’s in shock from this tragedy.”
So, instead of this same old, same old again, we get the loony plan from Megyn Kelly or her as-usual stupidity from MTG.
My real regret, however, is that innocent people doing their weekly shopping shouldn’t need to be gunned down in order for the Democrats to have a winning issue for 2024.
But that’s the America we live in, right?