We have a problem with guns . Please don ’ t say it ’ s the people , not the guns .
complain when someone ’ s fourth amendment rights are violated ? Rarely . In case you don ’ t know that one , I will reduce it to : we are protected from unreasonable search and seizure . The NRA only gets upset about this when a bunch of white guys who have taken government land get searched .
The NRA presents itself and its constituency as folksy Americans . The kind that work hard . A person you can trust . I can ’ t speak for a lot of their members , but I can see that the NRA is a sleazy operation who wants guns to sell . Their marketing tactic is fear . Every time there is a mass shooting a lot more guns sell .
Another classic the NRA spews is the good-guy-with-a-gun nonsense . I remember after the Aurora movie theater massacre , I heard so many people mention the good-guy-with-the-gun argument . I like watching action movies too , but I ’ ve never been so delusional to think that I ’ m James Bond or whoever is jumping from a jeep to a low fl ying plane while carrying a machine gun . Hey boys , this is real life . A witness in the movie theater said that the theater was so dark and smoky that they couldn ’ t tell if there were accomplices . The assailant was covered in body armor , but if a “ good guy ” had pulled out a gun , and another good guy pulled one out , how would they know who was a good guy , and who was an accomplice . How do we know which one is the good guy , and which one is the bad guy ? How come we rarely hear about these good guys coming to the rescue ?
Right after the worst mass shooting in American history at Orlando ’ s Pulse nightclub , the NRA started to focus on the shooter being from Afghanistan and calling 911 saying he was with ISIS . Of course , ISIS claimed him . They will claim any awful person . There was no mention that killing took place in a gay bar , during Latin night , and that it was likely a hate crime against gays and Latinos . Instead , it became a hate crime against Americans . Okay , that is a normal distortion in the NRA world . A few days later the Senate voted to reject the vote to ban selling guns to someone on a no-fl y list . Marco Rubio - who stood in front of Pulse a few hours after the shooting - was one of those who voted to sell guns to people on a no-fl y list . Then we read how much these politicians get paid by the NRA . Why is an NRA rating for a politician even relevant ? Why is a high rating a good thing ? Why is it brought up by Mitch ( the obstructer ) McConnell that the next Supreme Court Justice needs to be on the side of the NRA ? A high rating should be a red fl ag . It makes me think you are on their payroll .
When I heard Wayne La Pierre ( the head of the NRA ) say - right after Sandy Hook - that schools should arm themselves , I wasn ’ t as astonished at his insensitivity as I was that he had people following him and repeating this as if it were an answer . In the same speech , he talked about how politicians use tragedies for political gain . I would think he was referring to himself , but he is not that enlightened . He was actually referring to those who suggested gun restrictions following the tragedy . To me , La Pierre ’ s comments are equivalent to someone saying we need to fi gure out how to stop the fl ooding from happening again following Katrina , and someone else saying the person wanting to stop the fl ooding is an opportunist .
We have a problem with guns . Please don ’ t say it ’ s the people , not the guns . It ’ s the people with the guns . A lot of the discussions I hear or read on social media tell us what ’ s not going to work . That is consistent with the NRA ’ s narrative . They are the fi rst to say it ’ s not guns it ’ s the mentally ill . Okay Cowboy , that suggests a few things to me . One : it suggests you don ’ t think the mentally ill should have guns . Wait , that sounds like gun control . Part two of that ? The party that is quick to support the NRA , is also the party that doesn ’ t want to fund mental illness . I ’ ve got an idea . Why doesn ’ t the NRA use some of that money to help the mentally ill ? Come on you patriots show us you give a shit about this country .
We have a problem with guns . Please don ’ t say it ’ s the people , not the guns .
Photo by Ashley Inguanta
Let ’ s face it . We don ’ t have any concrete answers . We have a lot of people telling us what won ’ t work . We don ’ t have many offering to fi gure out what does work .
We need to have real discussions that are not blocked by the NRA ’ s rhetoric . I live in Orlando , less than two miles from Pulse . Every time I hear a siren I shake . I don ’ t want to live this way . I don ’ t think I have to .
Why is this the only issue where people say there ’ s nothing we can do ? That if criminals want to get guns they will ? Why are some of these people the same ones that say nobody is doing anything to stop terrorism ? What if we used their logic ? What if we said , “ Oh well , terrorists are going to kill , there ’ s nothing we can do about that .” How about this : if something is illegal someone can be arrested . How about if we approached it the same way we approach all crime ? We enforce it . Oh wow , am I the fi rst person to think of that ? I hope the hell not .
Pro-gun people : quit using examples like Chicago as a place where there is gun control , and there are murders . For one , they usually don ’ t give any context or other information . You don ’ t have to go far outside the city limits to get a gun , and these vague statements don ’ t address other problems that Chicago might have . What about Australia or any country in Western Europe ? They have tighter gun laws and way fewer murders .
Orlando ’ s Art Scene , v . 1.2
Following the killing of fi ve Dallas police offi cers , the Dallas police chief came out and called bullshit on open carry . Now the Republican National Convention says no to open carry . It ’ s becoming pretty evident that the concept of open carry is an incredibly immature idea . I would imagine police offi cers would be terrifi ed of open carry . This followed the NRA ’ s tepid response after Philando Castile was killed by a policeman . Castile was a black man with no record who had a concealed weapon with a permit . It ’ s apparent that the weapon didn ’ t save his life , and likely was part of the reason he was killed . I keep hoping that all of these incidents will take all of the NRA ’ s credibility away , but I ’ m not really hopeful .
I ’ ve had NRA members threaten to shoot me after posting something on Facebook . While I love irony as much as the next person , this is not the fun kind . We cannot be held hostage by people that are enabling gun violence . They are not patriots . They are not protecting anyone .
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