A price
The San Francisco Chronicle points out:
The reaction of Second Amendment absolutists and their enablers to the slaying of conservative activist Charlie Kirk Wednesday during his rally at Utah Valley University was as predictable as it was dangerous.
In a moment that begged for calm and unity, Democrats — even those who loathed Kirk politically — offered condolences and railed against political violence. Meanwhile, Republicans, who control Congress and the White House (and, let’s face it, the Supreme Court) were much less likely to condemn political violence, and none suggested they should pursue gun safety measures…
Kirk himself was prone to inflame tensions in the wake of tragic violence. “Having an armed citizenry comes with a price,” he once told his followers days after a horrific mass shooting.
Yes, letting people freely shlep guns around does indeed come with a price, and quite a steep one.
Well, just for once he paid the price himself rather than expecting schoolchildren to do so.
To a non-American like myself (I live in Ireland) the US gun laws are puzzling. In this country the gun has no mystique: it is considered to be a dangerous item and is treated accordingly.
What Ralph Waldo Emerson called “the vulgar musket-worship” seems to restrict any effort at serious gun safety in the US.
One piece of good news related to this awful event….the dreadful Gretchen Felker-Martin has been sacked from a lucrative job at DC Comics following inflammatory posts G F-M made about Kirk’s murder. G F-N’s Bluesky account has also been deactivated.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/dc-cancels-red-hood-comic-book-series-charlie-kirk-1236368576/
That’s the same G F-N who wrote a novel where J. K. Rowling died in a fire, called for his political opponents to be killed, and praised Osama bin Laden for organising the destruction of the World Trade Center.
https://archive.ph/oLwne
FAFO, indeed.
Mostly Cloudy #3
That odious Felker-Martin man should never have been hired by DC. He has been writing torture porn and threatening women for years. There is no way that DC could have missed this if they did a search of his online history before hiring him. I am glad he is gone but it sure would have been nice if men like this would stop being giving employment because trans.
Southwest88 #4
You are right – DC Comics should not have hired a person who has a history of making violent threats for years.
DC, like the rest of the US comic book/graphic novel industry, has had a difficult few years. So I assume the DC higher-ups just heard that G F-M was an “acclaimed horror author” and thought that hiring G F-M would make a successful comics title.
Apparently G F-M’s “Red Hood” comic was selling poorly and getting bad reviews, so maybe DC saw this event as a chance to cut their losses.
Like Mostly Cloudy, I live in Ireland, and agree about the relative attitudes to firearms. I am incapable of understanding the very idea of an attachment to such weapons, let alone the resistance to having them severely restricted.
Another person on the other side of the Atlantic. An “armed citizenry” sounds absolutely crazy. Was Kirk under the impression that USAns are settling on the frontier in Texas in fear of raids from the Cherokee or that King George III’s army is trying to get them to pay their taxes?
Well I’m not on the other side of the Atlantic but I am on some other figurative or literal side of the idea that guns are awesome. That idea is definitely not universal here.
And yes, in fact, I think Kirk and gun lunatics in general are in thrall to some form of the frontier myth and that is part of the explanation for the craziness. Years and years of cop shows and Westerns.