The War at Home

 

Tonight on ⁦@11thHour⁩ with ⁦@SRuhle⁩: Kansas City shooter was “…fully buying into the Fox News, OAN kind of line”. Grandson says Andrew Lester influenced by conservative media | The Kansas City Star ⁦@MSNBC⁩ https://t.co/IJivWs9Yxx

— Frank Figliuzzi (@FrankFigliuzzi1) April 21, 2023

A kid was shot because he knocked on the wrong door.  A girl got shot because she turned into the wrong driveway.  Cheerleaders were shot because they approached the wrong car. A little girl and her family were shot at because a ball rolled into the wrong lawn. 

I try to not just blame the guns--our violence problem is exacerbated by the availability of guns, but that isn't the whole problem. There is a synergy between some kind of overly defensive mindset, some kind of near-paranoia, and the access to weaponry, that is the problem. Something has gone terribly wrong with the basic American brain that it looks for enemies everywhere.

Our gun-related violence statistics are something to behold. The grandson of Andrew Lester talks about the viewpoint of his grandfather and you almost wonder how such shootings aren't more prevalent. 

Even while I understand how the AR-15 became a fetish for certain people, I don't blame the weapons--not entirely, even though I think we should keep them out of the hands of people who have previous assault charges, domestic violence, and restraining orders against them. That just seems logical to me. But we have a whole narrative, an NRA/gun lobby voice, saying having guns is your masculinity and your freedom. It's a solution to problems. The rhetoric isn't just home defense--it's payback and civil war. 

The fixation on violence as a front line tactic is disgraceful and damaging to civil peace. The gunhumpers who facilitated this POV need to understand their bullshit is why so many progressives want to ban various weapons. 

I get that the thing (any long gun, automated or not, any handgun, anything that goes boom and fires a projectile) is just a tool. But the rhetoric of gun nuts has weaponized the people for the sake of selling guns. 

And the people go off, hurting people and sometimes killing them. And that is not acceptable.