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Friday, December 14, 2012

If not now, when?
Posted by Jill | 3:33 PM
Christina Green, age 9, Granddaughter of former baseball player and manager Dallas Green. Shot dead by Jared Lee Loughner on January 8, 2011.

Gabriel Zimmerman, age 30. Community outreach director for Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, shot dead by Jared Lee Loughner on January 8, 2011.

Jonathan Blunk, age 24; Alexander J. Boik, 18; Jesse Childress, 29; Gordon Cowden, 51; Jessica Ghawi, 24; John Larimer, 27; Matt McQuinn, 27; Micayla Medek, 23; Veronica Moser-Sullivan, 6; Alex Sullivan, 27; Alexander C. Teves, 24; and Rebecca Wingo, 32. All shot dead by James Holmes in Aurora, Colorado on July 20, 2012.

Andres Ordonez, 25. Shot dead in a Los Angeles church after a dispute over graffiti, November 5, 2012.

Eighteen as-yet-unidentified kindergartners, shot dead today by Ryan Adam Lanza in Newtown, Connecticut.

Kasandra Perkins, 22. Shot dead by Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher, 25, who later shot himself to death.

White House Spokesman Jay Carney:
"I think it's important, on a day like today, to view this -- as I know the president, as a father, does, and I as a father and others who are parents certainly do, which is to feel enormous sympathy for families that are affected and to do everything we can to support state and local law enforcement and support those who are enduring what appears to be a very tragic event. There is, I am sure -- will be, rather -- a day for discussion of the usual Washington policy debates, but I do not think today is that day."

When IS the day, Jay? Tomorrow? A week from Tuesday? After the first of the year? When Jesus comes back? Mitvoch and donnershtick? When? Can we set a date? Can we make an appointment? Maybe do lunch? If you can't talk about gun violence when eighteen kindergartners have lost their lives ten fucking days before Christmas, when can you?

A few weeks ago, Ross Douchebag in the New York Times wrote about how American women need to have more babies. And yet nobody is writing about how guns are stealing the future of America. Yes, there are older people who are shot dead in mass shootings, and they are no less of a loss to their loved ones. But here we are, awash in guns, and every young person who is caught up in a mass shooting because s/he went to the movies or went to school or did any of the perfectly ordinary things that people do, is a young person who will never get her Ph.D. or find a new treatment for melanoma or discover a new clean source of energy or develop a car that runs on common household trash. Every young person who is killed in these shootings will never grow up and marry and have Babies For Ross Douchebag. Every young person who is killed in these shootings is an empty bed, an empty childhood room, an empty place at the dinner table, in the classroom, in the chemistry lab, at cheer practice, at the local Habitat for Humanity build.

Where is our outrage at this? Right-wing politicians scream at women to have more babies for America's future. They want to cut government spending to the bone in the name of America's future. They give lip service to America's future and then they shrug their shoulders when a sick person with easy access to guns goes nuts and decides to kill everyone he sees just because they were there.

Guns are destroying our future. Democrats, there's your framing. Now let's get out there and fucking use it.

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4 Comments:
Blogger rjs said...
it would also be appropriate to name all the pakistani & waristani children who have been killed by the drone air strikes that we have enabled by our silence...
12/14/12, 4:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
I love how the same crowd screams blue bloody murder at the idea of abortion --- ending the possibility of a child while it is few cells; but they don't scream the same tune when an adult with a gun kills them five years later.
12/14/12, 7:17 PM  
Anonymous e.a.f. said...
I have never understood the American love affair with guns.
It is beyond me why people need sub machine guns & high tech pistols. The Constitution does mention the right to bear arms but it was written in the 1700s. Things were a little different then. The idea was to be able to defend the country with citizen militias. Now the U.S.A. has the best Armed Forces in the world. It doesn't need an armed citizen milita.

some argue they need to be able to defend themselves against the government. Well you get to do that every time you vote. Saying you need automatic weapons to defent yourself against your own government doesn't make sense. You don't see this in any other western country.

It would be best if there were no advanced weapons available to people. Want a rifle to go hunting, fine. but you don't need a semi automatic to kill bambi. Want a hand gun? Well what do you want it for? These need to be registered & extensive background checks be done. Then of course there are hand guns & then there are HAND GUNS. The majority of people don't need HAND GUNS. If they are at that point the police have been called in.

Unless people have been extensively trained to operate weapons in high pressure siutations, they aren't going to do them much good. If weapons were taken off the streets life in the U.S.A. would be much safer. There is such a poliferation of guns in America anyone & everyone can access them.

Today we saw the killing of 20 children and 6 adults. We also see about 500 people per yr. killed in Chicago. There isn't any need for this. If guns were restricted & regulated police could take them away from those who didn't have the right to own & posess them. Just take them away.
12/14/12, 9:44 PM  
Blogger Allan S said...
Americans, and us Canadians too, will have prayers, memorial services and lay flowers in all sorts of places in memory of this horrible and preventable tragedy. All that does is comfort the living. It does not help the murdered. It most certainly won't help the next bunch of victims, and there will be a next bunch, that gun culture will always have a next bunch lined up. Organizations like the NRA don't have an upper limit of deaths where they pull back the reins and say,"Hey, maybe we should do something about this!" . The NRA and people of their ilk, do actually do something when shit like this goes down, they buy more guns and ammo and hoard them "to prevent crap like that from happening again". Go on any gun site/blog/facebook page and that's what you read. It is sickening. They want to arm teachers. Unfucking beleivable. The furor of this will die down, then another event will occur, and the cycle will continue.
12/15/12, 8:33 AM  
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