I’m in ranting sort of mood today. Bear with me dear readers. I think being cooped up with mutha-flipping cold has given me time to think. These events on Connecticut, horrific. Awful. And like many of you I’m angry. My anger is focused in three places; the perp first and foremost, the media and finally politicians and the NRA.
I think I’m just going write my stream of conscious on this. My apologies in advance for the language and, if you think I’m insensitive, it’s whats’ on my mind and I bet, on some of yours too. I’m just say’n it.
This wasn’t the first mass killing and it sure as shit ain’t going to be the last.
The Murderer
Almost this exact same thing happened in my hometown, Stockton California back in 1989. The Cleveland School Shooting; another deranged gunmen, more murdered elementary school kids. In that version the gunman drove his car into the parking lot of an elementary school, grabbed his legally purchased Chinese made copy of an AK-47, and after molotov cocktailing his car, walked into the school playground and squeezed off 106 rounds killing 5 kids and wounding 31 others before shooting himself in the head with a pistol.
I would argue that in a case like this the perp shouldn’t even be named. If I could write a headline about this it would be something the tune of “vicious murdering psychopath slaughters innocents before killing himself in a selfish act of cowardliness.” You want to run a profile story about these guys, tell us that they’re pathetic greasy sociopaths who couldn’t get dates and spent their days masturbating to internet porn. The more pathetic the better. The names of the murders shouldn’t be ingrained on the public, I should remember the Columbine shooters as a couple of nameless low life freaks who went on a murderous rampage. I should not read about how they were bullied and thus they were victims too. I should NOT have their names on tip of my tongue, especially when I can’t name one of their victims. This guy, same deal.
Ban the names from the media. And, while were at it, families don’t get the remains of their dead killers back. You don’t get a memorial service, a grave, a headstone, a monument, you don’t get squat. You kill people, when you die the state gets to cremate your remains and flush them down the sewer. The sooner your name is obliterated from collective memory the better. I sure as shit don’t want to know about you, and I don’t want your memory encouraging some other dipstick.
The Media
I’m not watching the fucking wall to wall media coverage. About two hours of news on this is all any of us who aren’t directly affected by this needs. Gimmie a daily update on the progress of the investigation and I’m good. And so should just about every other person on the planet. This wall to wall ratings fest as every outlet runs 24-7 coverage live from the scene. I mean seriously; profiling the shooter, profiling his family, stories about victims, the heroes, the town, ranting from gun control advocates, hand wringing by politicians, contrived statements, more contrived statements, congressmen shedding tears for their constituents, the tired old line “guns to don’t kill people, people blah blah”. It’s G-d damned mind numbing and it’s not helping, at least it’s not helping me. Worse than that it’s just encouraging the next psychopath.
I can’t even begin to imagine the pain and anguish; dropping my precious 5 year old of at school, and getting a call 2 hours later to tell me she’s dead. And that her tiny body is going to have to lay in the school for 24 hours while evidence is gathered.
Now the families are grieving. If there town is like mine the school is a local institution, they all know each other, the families around the community are all impacted. And now they get to make arrangements, conduct memorials and bury their children. And I’m sure they’re having to drive past media command centers, vans with giant antennas coming off the tops of them, strangers in front of the school, the store, churches, mortuaries, all holding microphones and facing cameras to bring America the story of a town grieving.
I might be alone in this, but frankly it’s none of my fucking business now. During war, the Military goes to great lengths to control access of the media. Partially for the security of the events, but also to protect the privacy of the men and women who might be injured or killed. And when they come home, it’s up the families to allow access to images of caskets and injured soldiers. Maybe when something like this goes down there should be a media pool (maybe there is and don’t know about it). Rather than make this look like a ratings grab maybe two or three seasoned reporters should be be selected from a couple networks and only they be allowed access to scene. The rest of the outlets have to take their feeds from one source and one set of reporters. America gets their news and the families get their privacy. Whats happening now, a clusterfuck.
Gun Lobby
When five kids at Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton were gunned down in 1989 there was call for a ban on assault weapons. Five years later a 10 year bad was passed by congress signed into law by the Clinton administration.
The conspiracy fucks at the National Rifle Association went ape shit. Which is one reason the ban was only 10 years. It has since sunset and now we’re free to exercise our so called “rights” to 100 round clips, Chinese made AK-47’s, Tech9 machine pistols, it goes on and on. The gun lobby has perpetrated one of the most effective misinformation campaigns in history on the American people. Effectively putting sportsmen, hunters and recreational shooters in same camp with paranoid conspiracy nuts. When those fuckers say that teflon coated bullets are needed for home protection, who exactly are the protecting themselves from? Only folks around here I know who have body armor, the kind that these bullets defeats, are police.
Wanna defend your home, use a shotgun. Effective and lethal. 50 round clip in a Bushmaster? You watch to many movies. Use a .45 if you must. 6 rounds should be enough to ward off most intruders.
Have any of those wingnuts read the Second Amendment? Here it is:
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed
That’s it. It doesn’t say a thing about the kinds of arms. But these guys have created a camels nose in the tent mentality that prohibits even the slightest introduction of common sense into our gun laws. When they ban a cop killer bullet, they’re gonna come after your BB gun. Common sense here.
Maybe since the cat is out of the bag here and the country is awash in assault rifles we have to get serious.
I don’t know what the answer is, but what we’re doing isn’t working.
And while I’m pissed, for those politicians on the NRA payroll, those folks who have held up every piece of federal gun control legislation in my life time, including allowing the assault weapons bad to expire, in my mind, there’s blood on your hands. Today, I’m not interested in listening to the “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” bullshit.
“We have laws in place, this isn’t about gun control.” “This is about mental illness.”
Stop the crap, at least today.
If this guy only had access to shotguns, hunting rifles and normal handguns I’m not sure this would have happened. I’m not sure looking at a 12 gauge gives the sociopath reject the same feeling of power an assault rife does. And you have to reload those, often.
I’m done. My rant on this subject is over. While I’m saddened buy the events in Connecticut I’m more saddened by the realization that nothings going to change, Americans are going hand wring and obsesses about this for a few weeks while the gun lobby does it’s best to muddy the arguments and create a cloudy cesspool of half truths and bullshit until not one of us knows what the real arguments against reasonable gun control are.
And nothing will change, and one day in the future more kindergartners will get mowed downs because we can’t have come to agreement that in essence, people dying from gun violence is a bad thing we should stop.\
