What kind of madhouse
As more and more details emerge about the recent unfortunate exercise in Second Amendment freedoms at Michigan State University, there are a couple that not only stick in the throat, but also make you wonder even more deeply what kind of madhouse in which we’ve all been living for the past few decades. From Fox2 in Detroit:
When Jackie Matthews was 11 years old, she was inside a classroom in Newtown, Connecticut, when children were shot and killed. Now at 21, she’s a Michigan State student and was just a few feet away from where a gunman killed at least 3 other students. Jackie shared her story on TikTok, recounting the moment she sat crouched in a classroom in Newtown when a gunman shot and killed kindergartners at Sandy Hook Elementary. She said that she suffered PTSD fracture in her lower back and every time she is in a stressful situation, the pain flares up. “The fact that this is the second mass shooting I have lived through is incomprehensible,” she said.
That’s not even the only one, Charles Pierce tells us.
And from another recent exercise in Second Amendment freedoms just a few miles up the road from MSU. From The New York Times:
Ms. Riddle, the Oxford High graduate who is now at Michigan State, remembered hiding in the band room in high school the day of that 2021 shooting. On Monday night, she and her roommate barricaded their dorm room door with a dresser and their bathroom door with a hamper, and hid under their desks. “I was trying to make myself as small as possible,” she said.
Sssssssshhhhhhhhh. Guns are more important than people.
Maybe legislators are waiting for the results of the winnowing process that will produce people who’ve survived at least three mass shootings, just so they’ve got a representative sample of experienced witnesses. After all, the probability must be getting higher than single instances of winning a lottery, being eaten by a shark, or getting struck by lightning, and will be more like having had more than one bone broken, surviving several car accidents, or breaking shoelaces. Third time’s the charm, right?
Yes, they’re waiting for the Teela Brown of mass shootings so they can start breeding the trait into the greater population thus assuring the safety of guns and people…
Kudos for the wonderfully apt Niven reference, Blood Knight in Sour Armor!
I might have posted this as a comment on B&W before, but it is worth linking to when the whole insanity of guns in the US comes up.
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2007/01/brin-classics-jefferson-rifle.html
If I lived in the US, my choice for ‘open carry’ would definitely be a bazooka. Ideal for self-defence against drive-by shooters and / or for vermin control; much the same thing, really. Take your choice.
After the Port Arthur massacre of 28 April 1996, then Australian PM John Howard siezed his opportunity and banned automatics, semi-automatics, military assault weapons and such, and tightened up on storage regulations. No more open display of gun collections on walls, much to the disgust of my brother-in-law, who had a wall covered with them. I also lost my lovely bolt-action .22 repeater; ideal for rabbiting.
Howard also played the politics skilfully, appearing under police-escort to address a large crowd howling for his blood and while wearing a flak-jacket under his suit, knowing full well how it would play out on the TV coverage, which was extensive.
He was duly re-elected. (Full term: 11 March 1996 until 3 December 2007.)
The American NRA got so concerned that they sent out some heavy to tell their side of the story on prime time TV, lest the Australian anti-gun virus finish up contaminating the US. (NB: this was before the Covid-19 epidemic and the rise of antivaxxers with their chants of “FREEDOM.!!!”)
Moral: a shooting every day and a massacre every month looks like the price Americans have to pay for the right to exercise their individual liberties under God, whom I take it they trust will not get too distracted by whatever, and in the hope that He will keep them safe till Kingdom Come. After that, it will be open-carry everywhere in Heaven.
After all, not even angels are 100% trustworthy; if Lucifer’s career is anything to go by.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australia)
Omar, if God took time out from making sure their favorite football team won the Super Bowl, just to prevent an ordinary, routine, daily massacre, they would howl with anger.
Actually iknklast, it strikes me that the principles of neo-Darwinism predict that Americans will evolve towards being a totally bullet-proof race, off whom all guages of ammunition will bounce, just like proverbial raindrops, or as off the robot ‘Gort,’ as in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6iF5sINVns
Omar, just rewatched The Day the Earth Stood Still last week. Timely comment.