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I.
Emotional Abuse
Every time there is a mass shooting, Billy Joe Jim Bob has to log onto the internet to see people saying mean things about him and his favorite hobby.
How awful that must be for him.
He feels really bad every time a child is shot in a classroom, and doesn't understand why people are mad at him about it. After all, he wasn't in that school. He's a responsible gun owner that's getting sick and tired of all the vitriol and hate surrounding his hobby every time a maniac kills a bunch of kids. Why should crazy people, that kill kids, represent him? These are criminals and murderers. Billy Joe Jim Bob is not that. He's a simple hobbyist, and not affiliated with mass shooters, in any way.
However, Billy Joe Jim Bob has a connection to every mass shooter, that he either actively ignores, or plainly cannot see. But you can't blame him for it, he just wants everyone to experience the love and affection he receives from the feeling of safety that firearms give him.
Doesn't everyone deserve the right to feel secure, and loved?
After all, the founding fathers guaranteed it.
Right?
Billy Joe Jim Bob is very, very emotionally attached to his firearms. So much so that you'd think they were living things. You'd think that they were his very own kids. Of course, if they were his children, they wouldn't be held in such high regard. His children can't defend him from the ethereal enemy lurking behind the bushes, the way an AR-15 can.
In the wake of the Uvalde shooting, Billy Joe Jim Bob has been studiously watching top Republican brass, as they inject NRA sponsored talking points into the social-media sphere via Fox News and NewsMax, one soundbite at a time, in order to create a flurry of excuses that every loud idiot you went to high school with can repeat on Facebook, ad-infinitum.
And boy, do they have some *very creative ideas*.
First, some examples from mainstream reporting:
So, lets do a quick re-cap of what the problems with gun violence in America, are, according to elected republicans and their favorite propaganda channel:
Not enough armed teachers
Teachers are too "woke" and "liberal"
There simply aren't enough guns in the schools
Women have rights
There are too many doors
Smoking Pot
Teachers unlocking doors (again)
Video games
Mental health
The existence of transgender people
There are other excuses, such as "a lack of American family values" and "God no longer being in schools". Ya know, normal rational human thinking.
Boy, the party of "small government" has quite a vested interest in entering into your home, and into your children's classrooms, in order to stop a problem only experienced in the United States of America, caused by people who will wield Government and The Law whenever it's politically advantageous for them.
"Can't ban guns, bans don't work and neither does the government" said Billy Joe.
"We have to ban abortion, ban immigration, ban CRT, ban LGBTQ, ban Wokeness, ban Liberals, if the immigrants were to come here LEGALLY, we wouldn't have a problem with immigration, we need the Republicans to reign in these corrupt democrats!" - Billy Joe, again. In the same sentence.
Law and Government is feckless against Billy Joe Jim Bobs hobby, but a perfect weapon to wield when those bright gays and colored people start talking too loud.
See how this works?
All sarcasm aside, the Republican party in the United States refuses to address the mass shooting epidemic. As I have demonstrated, they are woefully unable to come to a very simple conclusion: access to everyone means constant mass shootings. Even going by the logic of every translucent "argument" given by these hollow shells of human beings, you simply cannot come to a cohesive conclusion that offers any solutions.
If America is afflicted by a mental health epidemic, a teacher epidemic, a pot epidemic, a woman having rights epidemic, a teachers unlocking doors epidemic, a video game epidemic, a mental health epidemic, a transgender people epidemic.. If every American child is being influenced, constantly, by all of these aggravating factors that drive them to commit insane acts of terrorism....
Why are you arguing in favor of those same children being allowed access to AR-15s?
Or any gun? At all?
Why do you want the indoctrinating teachers, that are harming your kids, to open carry on campus?
Why do you trust the teachers that are brainwashing your children with enough firepower to wipe out a classroom?
The reality is, they don't.
The hypocrisy is the point.
II.
They Picked the Guns, Obviously
I decided to do some sleuthing, by looking at this hot topic being discussed by concerned citizens, on social media, that consider themselves members of a.....particular political party. Or, people of "no political party".
Or some party they completely made up.
Because fascists lie.
So lets have a look at the meme discourse on Facebook amongst our concerned denizens, shall we?
I think I've displayed enough.
It's quite a thing to see such a high level of engagement in relation to "the problem" being not just the design of schools, but what is being taught in them. There is also an enormous amount of vitriol for the LGBTQ+ community thanks to Republican rep Paul Gozars tweet that I referenced, which has now been taken down, but that doesn't matter. The damage has been done. The picture Gozar tweeted of a random person wearing a skirt (that isn't related to Uvalde in any capacity), is still in high circulation amongst the groups that the above Facebook users frequent when they are looking for political discussion. That persons life is at risk now, because misinformed, foaming-at-the-mouth conservatives have been convinced by "their guy" that the skirt wearing person was the shooter. That's why Gozar tweeted it. Billy Joe Jim Bob doesn't need to see anymore than that.
Republicans on social media, the Billy Joe Jim Bobs of America that have fetishisized gun ownership and the second amendment to a degree of straight-jacket insanity, were faced with a question:
Do we get rid of guns, or do we get rid of schools?
They picked schools.
Obviously.
More specifically, "government schools". They are alright with private schools, of course, because private schools aren't indoctrinating children with Marxists ideologies including such heinous teachings as Critical Race Theory (slavery happened) and Wokeism (gay people exist).
Well, not yet, anyways. It's only a matter of time before the people who home-school, to shield their children from the Woke Left that is influencing the purity of American children, feel that they are being wrongly slighted by the private schools as well. After all, the existence of an education that goes beyond what every parent believes subjectively, that they want to imprint into their child with a cattle prod, is deeply offensive to real, true, pure blooded American parents.
The perpetual outrage machine powered by white male conservative victimhood is not going to simply stop turning because they achieved one goal.
Inaction in Uvalde, and every other shooting, is a means to an end.
What, really, is the consequence of dead children, when they valiantly lost their lives to prove that the real problem is government indoctrination through public schools?
Yeah, we're going to have *that* conversation.
For the last 50 years, Republicans have been actively working to dismantle public education.
Do you think that Republicans are good, moral people, that wouldn't use school shootings as an excuse to do just that?
Everything and anything terrible that happens in public schools, related to guns, is immediately weaponized by the party that "doesn't want to politicize school shootings". They actively, and immediately, will stare into the shredded faces of elementary school children and those childrens parents, offer their thoughts and prayers, make a few comments about mental health, and wait for the clock on national outrage to run out.
The elected reps that don't want to politicize school shootings, are, by definition, politicians.
Being political is their job.
They are outright telling shooting victims, and shooting victims families, that just because their child died, that it doesn't mean they should have to do their jobs.
They have perfected gaslighting.
Conclusion
The Republican party, and your annoying flag waving neighbor, are all incredibly aware that the guns are the problem. They know this. That has never been up for debate.
However, they are emotionally attached to those guns. Emotionally attached, as if they were there own children, or their own christian god.
That emotional attachment comes from decades of gaslighting from the Republican party, that states that if you don't own enough guns to arm a small country, a bad guy is going to show up one day and take everything you've ever loved. So, when a bad guy uses their favorite tool to kill a bunch of kids, the emotional attachment to their own firearms, and the safety they feel it brings them, overrides any empathy for kids that are already dead.
Because, well, they don't want what happened to those kids, to happen to their kids. So they buy more guns, and more ammo.
Repeat every shooting for the last 10 years.
Republicans and their voting base have a consistent army of ethereal enemies that they are dedicated to killing. These enemies are constant, everchanging, and the next enemy is always more dangerous than the last.
Fear of an unseen enemy is the foundation of gun ownership in America.
Be it "caravans of illegal immigrants" or "islamic terrorists" or " liberals" or "joe bidens tyrannical government" or "lgtbq people grooming kids" or "marxists turning the country socialist" or "the street gangs of chicago" or "the inflation of venezuela" or "teachers indoctrinating kids with CRT" or "Hollywood grooming kids for pedophiles" or "drag shows" or "Disney" or "Dr Suess is woke" or "some guy might break into my house" or "i have to get home to my family" or "this areas really bad" or...
I could literally go on forever.
They are terrified of everything.
Terrified. Of. Everything.
They perceive all of these problems that the US has, and the only solution they have ever come up with for any of it, is owning guns.
What other reason for arming themselves, against all of these threats, could their possibly be?
Could it be that gun ownership is the final solution to the liberal problem?
Could that be the message?
It sure as hell is starting to sound that way.
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