Guns and Irony

We who are not fearful that the government is going to come banging on our doors to confiscate our guns are more fearful of those people whose paranoia demands total freedom to bear -- and bare -- their weapons.  We wondered at the bizarre result of the tragedy of 20 children shot and killed in Newtown in December of 2012:  more states passing more laws allowing more weapons with less training in more public places.

So it was just another ironic happenstance today that the front page of The State's website headlined "Officer Involved Shootings on the Rise in South Carolina, Richland County," with the third story on the page being, "Haley Will Sign Bill that Allows Concealed Weapons in Bars, Restaurants on Tuesday."

Where is the disconnect???  Is it a matter of the more things get out of control, the greater the paranoia and the more things get out of control?  Are we being controlled by the NRA and ALEC or is it the gun nuts who, like the most psychotic people in the neighborhood, are also the loudest and the hardest to speak over?

When logic is constantly being defeated by radical ideology, as it is in the South these days, I think the question has to be why those capable of reason -- those who I still believe are the majority -- continue to be uninformed, uninterested, uninvolved.  I can understand why those who are rageful and irrational are the ones who persistently and tirelessly show up at abortion clinics and the state capital, and stand in line at Chick-fil-A to wave their dollars in support of homophobia.

What I can't understand is the number of citizens that understand the issues and don't vote.  And the ones who know the issues but minimize the importance and continue to vote on a party line.  And for gods' sake, our own Democrats and Democratic Party that vote for guns and against the rights of women and gays, what on earth is that all about?

So here we have it, consolidated into one front page website, the insanity that more people are being killed by guns while our politicians are voting to allow the freedom to carry weapons into public places, bars, restaurants, schools.  And coming soon:  legislation to allow people to "open carry," so the paranoid can actually see that those people they believed were coming to get them are armed.

I don't know where it ends, but the crazies are indeed tireless and, unlike so many of the rest of us, they vote.