Thoughts & Prayers
maybe it's time to try something else...
MICHIGAN / SCHOOL EXECUTIONS / BLUE LIVES MATTER
Madisyn Baldwin, 17, Tate Myre, 16, Justin Shilling, 17, and Hana St. Juliana, 14 died as a result of high-velocity rounds (1132 ft/s or 770 mph) fired by their classmate thanks to a wonderfully exciting early Christmas gift and the largesse of his parents. The gun store was kind enough to augment our celebration of Jesus’ birth with a wonderful Black Friday sale. What a thoughtful gift and I am so pleased that a significant subset of my fellow citizens will shout their support for the right from the mountaintop in the days ahead. It’s especially cool that the “tool” in question has a polymer handle just like they use in those fun FPS games. The student managed to reload once (15 more shells) before reaching a calm state and surrendering. The rounds were parabellum from the Latin “Si vis pacem, para bellum”. For peace, prepare for war (at school I guess). I brace myself after every shooting for some of the following fodder:
Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. [The efficiency of chemical geniuses who mass-produced Zyklon-B are not responsible for mass-extermination, it was ONLY those folks separating families as they left the train cars we should blame]
My thoughts and prayers go out to all of the impacted. [Sorry I did not think about what a high-velocity round, so fun to feel the kickback of at the range does to human flesh in a civilian setting like a school — the real spirit of Christmas]
Why didn’t the parents know what their kids were doing? [Don’t blame the parents, besides lots of their friends go to the range and have lots of fun. They even save the targets and post them on Facebook and Instagram. Kids will be kids…my kid has 1000 followers, isn’t that amazing!]
Why didn’t the teachers stop this, they had their chance. [Why can’t these teachers be trained as physicians, nurses, counselors, beyond their teaching credentials. Perhaps we can train them to also operate the boiler and clear the snow from the parking lot, think of the savings!]
I have been to a gun range. People go to the gun range for “fun” in MANY cases. For some, it is just another form of entertainment like going to an amusement park. For some, hopefully, law enforcement officers and military trainees, the purpose is to become proficient. I have witnessed some of the individuals in the adjacent lanes, holding weapons of mass death as if they are in a Rambo movie or a music video. If you have not been to a range, you should perhaps explore this and see for yourself. If you have never been and have no interest, you are NOT QUALIFIED to comment on my statement. If you have been to a gun range, you know what happens and to remain purposefully silent is complicity. You also know the adrenaline junkie feeling that accompanies the discharge of the weapon. Such operant conditioning continuously encouraged is so profoundly selfish, dangerous, and avoidable and the most responsible of gun owners know this. This has NOTHING TO DO with responsible gun ownership.
My trip to the range was wonderful despite all of this. My memory is not of the firing of the weapon, it is of the actions of the person who took me there to share their expertise. I was accompanied by an experienced and serious person who took it upon himself to pause what we were doing and to help, assist and correct the madness in the adjacent lanes. The world thankfully contains people who are responsible and pass it on. My point today is there is an asymmetric risk to so many of us as a result of how we treat access to firearms in this country. Counting on a good Samaritan in lane two is not a great plan to organize around.
I imagine in the days ahead, many people will “like” any post that opposes any thoughtful consideration of reform. I respect the right and privilege that accompanies gun ownership. That is not the point. I implore people who have the willingness and consideration left to use that frontal lobe. Think SIMPLY of the law enforcement consequences of just wanting to preserve this madness at the gun range/amusement park. For law enforcement, the stakes are high. We know they need our help and to purposefully ignore that means all of those “I support law enforcement” bobos are merely feigning interest.
Dutiful jurists of the Supreme Court will assure the rest of us that from their careful evaluation of founding documents that the Founders were wise and envisioned all of this. Their complicity to profess this “Original Intent” gleaned from 250-year-old quill pen documents is just crazy. They were 25 years prior to the first vaccine for smallpox. I wonder what those wise justices and their discussions might add to our current thoughtful deliberations in the courts about vaccination. Original intent has become the means to carry on this willful deceit. Thus far, we’ve decided collectively (through our inaction) that there is nothing wrong with making it easy for the dangers of the street and allowing those who protect all of us to face the most firepower possible. Please remember to wear your vest and helmet just like a video game. Blue lives matter but the range is just harmless fun.
A few years ago, as part of his narcissistic rantings that pollute millions of people’s feeds on social media, Elon Musk actively offered the sale of flamethrowers. I realize that Mr. Musk has become the modern carnival barker but what part of all this is sensible? I have heard the trite simplification of such as “mean tweets” or “free speech”. It is neither, but rather profound decay in judgment that society has become able to rationalize away as funny, ironic, retweetable, and of course Constitutional.
What we know is that highly optimized weapons focused on rapid and convenient fire have evolved and now we stand by as they are sold in volumes largely without limits. This experiment in “freedom” has led to an arms race for our law enforcement, that thin blue line that we all count on and support in our Newsfeed and tweets. All of these weapons serve as the runoff and torrent of overall sales, marketing with Amazon efficiency. We all know that broad and easy access to these weapons has arrived in the illicit market and made our streets all the more dangerous. It is best to blame he/she who finally does the firing ONLY according to the apologists. That way I still get to go and have a blast at the range and not feel complicit.
Where is the line between rights and responsibilities and sacrifice? We have all witnessed the bloodshed in our streets. We all know that the police are put at risk by each incremental “improvement” in firepower we grant to the market on the altar of the 2nd Amendment envisioned by musket-bearing, powdered-wig wearing, and King George-fearing men at the founding of the nation.
I am a firm believer that things improve. The willing introduction of asymmetric power in the hands of individuals in the name of a free-market race to the bottom is dangerous. Beyond our own children, we place their educators and the law enforcement who protect all of us at incredibly increased risk. Perhaps the fun and adrenaline rush of the range is a worthwhile tradeoff. No one is talking about hunting and that is only an asinine slippery slope and lazy argument. What is the impact of overwhelming stupidity? Even with progress in society, the particularly ignorant policy will overwhelm progress. Modern medicine, treatment of gunshot wounds, trauma specialization to save limbs, artificial limbs to enable catastrophic recoveries are our struggle to keep the barbarians at the gate. Do not underestimate that these desperate responses to keep this madness at bay are not a factor. How much death in the name of freedom must we endure? Perhaps this is a test to see how much access to asymmetric killing the society can withstand and still progress?
I suppose in ten years we will be surprised when a particularly deranged citizen will buy a nice semi-automatic online, revise the firing pin and finally just attach it to to a drone. I would imagine there will be lots of thoughts and prayers offered by sincere and good-meaning folks all over.
Do not mistake the title as if I am against thoughts and prayers. For once, I would hope we might try action. Remember the missive about insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Here is tonight’s music. The lyrics might be troubling. When kids write songs about youth shootings, we have outkicked our coverage. Be safe. If the plan is not working, adjust the plan.
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