I turned on my television in the middle of the night, a couple of days ago, for some unknown reason, to see that the premiere of Batman in Colorado had been ruined by some joker with a cache of weapons large enough to overthrow a small tyrant.
Within hours, I began to hear a kind of media jujitsu we always hear after one of these shootings — gun nuts, lobbyists, right wingers, etc., saying how unfair it was that they were being blamed for the fact that a person, armed with all the things that they loved and had lobbied for, had killed all of these people.
Let me say this directly, however. If you are a gun nut, a lobbyist, an NRA member, etc., you have blood on your hands.
I am not talking about metaphorical blood. I am talking about the actual blood of the person who were actually killed, injured, maimed, and scarred emotionally for life. Those persons have you to blame, for the fact that a single man, armed with four weapons, was able to ruin their lives.
And it could have been much worse. The slayer wore body armor and had obtained 6000 bullets. Six thousand. We keep talking about the original intent of the Founding Fathers, and the “sacred” document called the Constitution (so sacred that slavery was explicitly allowed in it) as if it is still so relevant today. In this context one has to ask did the original entire Continental Army have 6000 bullets? They certainly did not have Glocks and semi-automatic weapons.
It is idiotic, then, to ignore the reality that a man simply does not need semiautomatic weapons and 6000 bullets unless his goal is to commit a crime. And yet there appears to be no regulation that is rational enough to pass muster with the NRA or any gun lover anywhere. Since Columbine, there have been 29 mass shootings in the USA. This was the largest in terms of casualties, but not in number of dead.
Despite the utter horror, we already hear the same media campaign from the right wing that always bubbles up. Every time we hear how it is not fair to blame them. We hear how this is probably just a plot to take away guns, how we ought to take away cars instead, how we need guns to be safe in America.
I also heard it said that this was not the “type of thing” that happens in Colorado. This seems like an insane thing to say. Columbine is only a few miles away from Aurora, Colorado. So actually, the truth is this is the kind of thing that happens there. You embrace guns and act like they are useful to you, and even say we would be MORE safe if only everybody had a gun. It is just rank stupidity. Somewhere Darwin is looking down and nodding his head.. And some day soon, somebody with 6000 bullets is going to make this look like a tea party in comparison. That blood will be on the hands of gunlovers too, because again you act as if a few simple rules to limit the number of weapons available to people would be the end of civilization as you know it.
The end of civilization, as I know it, however, is when one man can utterly ruin the lives of 71 people, not to mention the other hundreds in the theater who survived and will be traumatized FOR LIFE, and not to mention, all the loved ones who lived through it outside the theater. There will be literally thousands of people who will be scarred forever, who will be emotional wrecks, and will never look at the sunrise again, in the same way. Some will take their own lives, and the lives of others. Again, this blood, this heartache, and this trauma, is on your hands. If you fail to appreciate the actual harm you have caused, you ought to visit Colorado, visit the families who have lost loved ones, and visit the theater, and look around, and think about what you have done to make this outrage possible.
I go further, however, and ask, and suggest, and beg, those in the gun community, to begin to ask the question as to how they can prevent this kind of thing from happening again? Are you able to self-police, in order to protect your right? My gut instinct tells me you aren’t. You are far too in love with your Glocks and your automatic weapons, things that make loud noises and make you feel like a man, to ever give them up.
