The Good Guys with Guns

 

Ted Cruz proposes armed cops in elementary schools to deter school shootings pic.twitter.com/sJ8B6cf9Xd

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 25, 2022

The cops engaged Salvador Ramos when he crashed his vehicle outside of the elementary school where he murdered 18 children and one teacher--they were good guys with guns, and he was wearing tactical armor. They failed to stop him. The good guy with guns thing fails again and again. There was an armed resource officer at Columbine High School. There was an armed resource officer at Mary Stoneman Douglas High School. Officers were on the scene at Sandy Hook within minutes of Adam Lanza entering the school. The good guy with a gun in Buffalo died because the shooter wore body armor, and he didn't. 

The good guys with guns don't prevent the tragedy, even if they can cut it shorter. It's astonishing to hear the same things, the same untrue things, again and again. The good guy with a gun doesn't come in time. The odds are against it. It's lazy to say something so frequently proven untrue. Isn't Cruz supposed to be some kind of smart person? 

He mentions deterrence. Deterrence. What the fuck? Meanwhile the incumbent TX AG who was indicted for securities fraud like years ago, who just won his recent primary says, man, outlawing guns won't do shit. "You can't stop bad people from doing bad things?"  Deterrence isn't even a real thing. 

And since an indicted MF is the top lawman in Texas, this really feels probable, and also, I don't understand why they outlawed abortion in Texas since obviously, that's still going to happen, not that I think getting abortions are bad, but laws are apparently useless, am I right? So like, why does Paxton even have a job? Since clearly law enforcement is some weird shit that never works. I MEAN, IT OBVIOUSLY DOESN'T IN HIS CASE. 

Did that sound like I'm frustrated with Republicans regarding their dependence on the NRA teat and the not-especially well-regulated militia and militia-curious voting demographic? Well, exactly. 

These shooters aren't always psychotic, they aren't spontaneously enacting violence--they are capable of planning and often understand that they might well be killed. They have factored pain and death into their grim calculus of destruction. We clearly need to get better at sorting out who is throwing up red flags--but we also should not be so cavalier about who can get their hands on firearms. And this is the one thing Republicans can't admit--that the parallel factor for shootings in this country, the death toll that exists nowhere else--exists in relationship to so much access to guns. To our national religion of gun worship.  Our cultural assumptions of guns as a solution. 

I do not think a single Republican congressperson exists who is reasonable on guns. Not a one. Not a one who isn't comfortable with what happened today and doesn't think this is just the price we pay for the 2nd Amendment, and is also fine with the idea that Oath Keepers were going to bring guns to the Capitol as a part of a second wave on 1/6.  Because guns are for overthrowing the "tyranny" of big government eventually.  Isn't that what they tell us? 

But in the meanwhile, guns are killing so many little children. But if some goddamn Republican wants to be a fucking hero, they better give it to the NRA and what happened today with, to use a metaphor, both barrels. Or I wouldn't believe it. Because fuck the NRA and those who get down on their knees to pray, but fellate the barrel of a gun instead. They aren't the good guys. They wouldn't even know where to start.