Not bad for a gun-hater.
So. A homophobic terrorist shoots up a Unitarian Universalist church, which is pretty much the mass murdering equivalent of kicking puppies. The usual suspects on both sides come out of the woodwork to claim that more guns or fewer guns, respectively, would have prevented this tragedy from occurring.
On the NRA side, SaysUncle is on the case!
The Mrs. often asks why I carry to church. It’s because shootings keep happening at churches.
Kynn points out that politicizing tragedy and victim-blaming is kind of a shitty thing to do. Posters from SaysUncle immediately jump all over her blog. She bans them. Her blog, her prerogative, and she wasn’t looking for a debate.
SaysUncle & Co. get butthurt about it and bring up Kynn’s appearance and gender presentation, as if either are relevant.
I can’t resist an opportunity to troll, so I went over there and attempted to reason with them. After all, I’m not anti-gun; I just think that guns wouldn’t have prevented the tragedy. But they flip out, arguing that of course, they totally could have taken down the shooter without hurting anyone else.
There are a lot of arguments that one can make here, but my final one, as I was starting to get caught up in their spam filters, was that yes, certainly, I respect their right to own guns. Among the many problems with their victim-blaming line, however, is the idea that the only way to prevent gun violence is by carrying concealed firearms. To which I asked: what about kids who are too young to shoot, people with physical or mental disabilities that prevent them from safely operating guns, and especially in this case, what about pacifists who don’t want to carry guns? Should they, like the original poster, carry guns to church? And if they don’t, do they deserve to get shot?
The, er, ludicrous response:
Each and every single person on Earth has the implicit right to kneel, bend their head and take a bullet in the back of the head. Each person has the right to lie supine with knees spread. Each and every person has the right to stand in abject terror with hands raised and the sure and certain knowledge that personal death is very near.
Where do these people live—Baghdad? I have a hard time imagining that violence is so rampant in the U.S. that one’s only option if one wants to be safe is to pack heat. Earlier, we were arguing about whether it’s responsible to have guns around children—I firmly believe that it is not. Their argument hinged on the infrequency of accidental child deaths caused by guns.
But random shootings, well-publicized as they are, are also quite rare. You’re more likely to die in a car accident. So I wonder at the psychology of people convinced that they need to be armed when they attend children’s plays at churches—you know, just in case. I suspect there’s some other motive at work, such as complete and utter paranoia or, possibly, tiny penises.
These guys don’t believe me that I’m not part of some sinister left-wing conspiracy to take their guns away (I’m really not, and I’m not sure why they’re so scared when the far-right has been in power in their country, content to erode all of their civil liberties besides the right to bear arms). But to be honest, it’s really hard to take the pro-gun argument seriously when the people making these arguments are so batshit that the solution to any problem becomes a testosterone-laced violent fantasy.
Anyway, apparently they’re looking for Rational DebateTM, which I guess is an invitation to wander over there and disagree with them. Just a warning: If you disagree too effectively, they start to froth at the mouth and suddenly every comment you make mysteriously gets caught in their spam filter.