Some Thoughts on Tragedy, Gun Control, and Actionable Culture

I have not posted anything about recent events in Connecticut or the ensuing debates that have raged on in media outlets as they debate things everyone seems to have a firm grasp of, despite not agreeing.

Partly, because this is a humor publication and I didn't see anything funny for a couple days there. The other reason is that I felt rather conflicted as well. Do I believe horrible events like these can be prevented–at least in such quantity–by tighter restrictions on the availability and severity of firearms? Obviously. There would also be fewer cars if we limited the sale of gas. This is not an argument against doing so, just an obvious course of action to ameliorate the situation.

Do I believe the federal government should mandate who can own a gun? Not solely, because that legitimately could be abused if a legitimate dictatorship were established in some insane future dystopia–which I might add has in no cinematic portrayal ever used a young white guy as evil dictator, only old white men. However, as a society, we all seem to agree that the status quo of the legal and health care systems seem inadequate. So why not remove the slippery slope argument entirely?

Do it by referendum.

Hold a popular vote in every state, every county. Let the poeple of those counties, now, when their gut reactions favor the side of self-restraint and decency, decide how stringent regulations on purchasing weapons should be.

Don't make it an outright ban. Don't even let that be an option. Choose what kind of process must be gone through to acquire one. Make them pass written and safety tests. Make the innitial license conditional.

Make it harder to buy a firearm than get a driver's license.

Require a goddam psych screening for anyone looking to buy high-powered, semi-auto, or anything else used more to kill people than fauna. I really don't care. Crazed, gun-toting counties with secessionist leanings can still have all the AKs they want. I'm not worried about them blowing up their own shopping malls. The important thing is that people who want to change our society engage in that society. No one is forcing you to throw away your defenses. We're asking you to evaluate what you actually need and join the discussion.

Today I found this image on Facebook:

This is an example of being a worthless human being. "Support the troops" is a meaningless phrase invented by idiots who felt threatened in some noncorporeal way. It does nothing. Withdrawing troops supports them, but sending them to defend you is more important? Why not enlist yourself. That's certainly supporting the troop next to you. If you're not going to join their effort, act to help them.

This image? It's a "fuck you" to anyone who dissents from your opinion, yet it contributes nothing. It is less useful than spending the time it would take to read the text talking about how to help your local VFW barbecue.

And for the record, here's the original image associated with that story:

Yup, it's 100% bullshit stolen from an episode of M*A*S*H. There's your joke. So next time you 'Like' a photo on Facebook and feel like a patriot, slap yourself across the face and then donate $5 to whatever charity the nearest Vet wants.

On Glenn Beck

I discovered this yesterday. Previously, I was only a bit confused by Beck's vitriolic diatribes. primarily, I wondered whether Beck realized that—and if he did, why—he dressed like a fascist on the cover of "Arguing with Idiots." Case in point:

Still, I generally believed that if I were to sit down with Glenn Beck in a quiet setting, and neither of us were to raise our voices, I would be able to best Beck in any political debate in a manner of a few minutes.

Now, now I don't know. I think I might resort to screaming in futility and forfeit my own opinions in favor of completely justifiable murder.

Glenn Beck, you are not George Washington.

Yes, I'm sure the premise of your book was that Washington valued and tried to embody in his very human life higher ideals, which we too can choose to live by, even through hardship and personal difficulty. However, you are still not George Washington. I believe that, brought down to it, you would throw your ideals out the window to save his own life.

I would do the same thing. I'm a bleeding heart pussy. I believe life is the only sacred thing in existence, and I would give the lives of anyone willing to protect that right to protect it. I myself, am scared shitless of dying, and so would be a terrible defender. [Only partly because I compromise my integrity. The general fear would also just make me a terrible soldier in general, which is not in the best interests of any soldier nearby, or any civilians depending on me. But I digress from the main topic.]

The point I'm trying to make is that Glen Beck, an iconoclast and a pedagogue, is the very opposite of the type of men who founded this country, the parts of those men that have come into history since their deaths, that were only in the smallest sense a part of them and we have constructed as more altruistic versions of themselves. Glenn Beck is everything visceral and human and weak about the founding fathers. He is the ones who asked Washington to be their King.

That Glenn Beck would compare himself in any way to George Washington is an insult to anyone who carries a quarter in their pocket.