When that asshole Mark Sanford was asked about gun control on MSNBC on Thursday, he said, "I think it's premature. I think that advocates on both sides of the gun debate will use this tragedy to make their case." He called it a "tug-of-war, if you will, that goes with the world of politics."
I wish I could just say what I am thinking, but the string of obscenities that come to mind just don't advance my position on this, so I won't. Although obscenity would certainly be warranted in response to the obscenity of Sanford's bullshit.
Fact is, as usual, Sanford is not saying anything new. I am sure that since Wednesday the NRA has been in high gear, reaching out to all its politicians in South Carolina and the rest of the country, soothing raw nerves, giving Nikki Haley a figurative tissue to dry her eyes. I'm not sure she was choked up over the tragedy, or over "the humility" she was seeing. A normal human being might consider that she had been wrong about her staunch advocacy over gun rights; after her all too recent prayer day, she might even wonder if God was trying to tell her something. But what will come out of this, after she congratulates herself on being there for the families of the victims, is more certainty that what we need is more law and order, as well as more guns. Just like her buddies at the NRA want her to believe.
It's appalling -- appalling doesn't even approach the word I am trying to convey -- that these protectors of the weapons can pretend to be protectors of the people. The NRA bullshit spouted by Lindsey Graham about a mother needing a high capacity gun to defend her children, the bullshit by Wayne LaPierre that has been parroted by all our gun-totin', NRA worshipping officials:
This morning The Onion did an angry and ironic spoof, not of the violence, but of the NRA's Charles Cotton who was front and center telling us why we should not cause this tragedy to infringe on our constitutional rights. In the words of The Onion:
“While we mourn those killed, we should never let an incident like this distract from our defense of [the fact that I myself am a pile of human waste who is fundamentally incapable of responding to the deaths of innocent people without raw, putrid sewage gushing from my mouth].”
And keep your eyes on Lindsey Graham, who is now saying that the reason this happened is the failure of the national background check system. I wonder why the system failed... maybe it's because the last time it was up for debate in Congress people like Lindsey Graham played politics with it, hoping to slip in some nasty amendments and maybe water down the language. It seems to me that basically what Graham wanted to do was track people who were mentally ill, and under no circumstances allow universal background checks.
If there was money involved here, I would say keep your hand on your wallet.
But it's only about money for the NRA. They are again twisting this tragedy around to promote the kind of fear that actually armed people like the young man who committed this horrendous crime. After Aurora, it took the NRA about a week to come up with the line that it is too soon after the tragedy to debate gun control. By the time of the Newtown massacre, they were armed and ready, successfully convincing politicians and too many of the fearful public that what was needed was more guns, not less.
And the taste of success was green and gold. Billions of dollars were made by the arms industry from the blood of innocent and fearful Americans.
So now the lines are well rehearsed. The NRA has actually, as spoofed by The Onion, assigned blame to pastor and state senator Clementa Pinckney for failing to support bills that would allow people to carry guns in churches. While Charleston mourns the tragedy, Nikki Haley has come out armed and ready for revenge, saying that the gunman deserves the death penalty. I don't know what god she prayed to last weekend, but it was not the one that was being studied at the Emanuel AME Church on Wednesday.
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