In America, anyone can be President. Scary, huh? That’s good news for Presidential candidate Ben Carson, because he’s raking in millions like he got a endorsement deal from Nike just for saying Muslims shouldn’t be allowed to be President. Ben Carson then realized there was more money to be made, so in the wake of the Umpqua Community College shooting which left 9 people dead and 9 people injured, Carson channeled his Mark Wahlberg and let the victims’ families know they died because they weren’t aggressive enough. Pussies.
“I would not just stand there and let him shoot me. I would say: ‘Hey, guys, everybody attack him! He may shoot me, but he can’t get us all.’ ”
You wouldn’t stand there and let him shoot you? You mean like this dude? Tell more. Apparently that wasn’t tone deaf enough, so Carson followed it up with this Facebook post.
As a Doctor, I spent many a night pulling bullets out of bodies. There is no doubt that this senseless violence is breathtaking – but I never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than taking the right to arm ourselves away.
And there’s the problem. Any chance for a rational gun control debate was lost a long time ago, because as soon as you say “gun control”, that for some reason gets translated through the paranoia app as “OBAMA WANTS TO TAKE YOUR GUNS!”. This is what people actually believe. They even have to convince themselves that mass shooting are staged by the government, because Obama is so rock hard to take your guns away he’ll kill children to do it. In reality, America has a gun violence problem. I don’t need to show you statistics or confirmed data. You’ve seen it. We’ve all seen it. If you don’t think we have a problem, either you adamantly refuse to believe it or you just moved here two weeks ago from El Salvador. The Second Amendment? Yes, bearing arms is a right. Let’s move on. Mostly to agree that getting a license to use those should be a privilege so when you use them you’re an asset and not a liability. The only way a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun is if his training includes more than just watching John Wick five times. Guns don’t kill people? Yeah. They do. That’s why the gun shop owner in Terminator was confused when Arnold Schwarzenegger brought in his itemized shopping list. We haven’t invited other shit that kills better yet. Criminals don’t obey gun laws? Correct. That’s what criminals do. They also don’t obey other laws. So unless you want to lower the driving age to 6 because we won’t be able to stop all traffic deaths anyway, then your argument just sounds dumb. There’s a federal law that allows guns to be sold when NICS doesn’t return a decision within 72 business days. And in some states if you want to buy at a gun show, all you need is a driver’s license. Maybe let’s start there. I’m sure all “law-abiding citizens” would agree, right? Chicago? Let’s stop. Because if the only time you care about black people dying is self-serving, maybe bringing them up isn’t for you. Yes, Chicago has strict gun control laws. Chicago also has gangs (see “criminals”). So if Chicago has strict gun control laws but a shocking amount of gun violence, where did all those guns come from, the gun stork? If you guessed “everywhere except Chicago“, congratulations. Man, if there was a way to stop them getting there. Mental heath? I’m glad this is a great talking point whenever mass shootings occur, but unless you have to turn over your psychiatric history before you purchase a gun or Trump is gonna take some of that wall money and invest in a pre-crime division, good luck with that. We’ll never really address mental health in America, because if your goal is to keep guns away from killers with a mental illness, let’s say PTSD, eventually you’ll have to start talking about taking away guns from veterans. And that would be hilariously ironic if it wasn’t already sadly ironic. Gun-free zones? You know what places have more people? Malls. Stadiums. An Apple store every six months. Why don’t mass shooters hit those up like schools? You could make the case that the shooter was suicidal anyway, but it doesn’t take much of a stretch to know why they kill themselves as soon as the cops show up. Should a campus look like an armed insurgency? Fuck no. Should a school use money to give any staff and faculty a CCW permit and active shooter training for those who wish to volunteer? Fuck yes. If I’m a shooter and I know there’s a possibility my manifesto might hit a snag when the first responder could be Ms. Meadows in the art class who is not up for my bullshit today, I’d probably reconsider reaching out to my estranged father. But whatever. I’m talking to myself, which is what all the GOP candidates pretty much say we should do for the victims’ families. So I guess we can keep doing that until we eventually get shot.
