While I feel obliged to create a commemorative post for the event that unfolded this weekend in Orlando, 49 dead at the hands of another lunatic armed to the terror of the public, I am not particularly emotionally charged by it. Facebook posts and comment sections on media and agenda driven websites will flourish. Liberals will call conservatives reprehensible in their uncompromising support for gun rights, conservatives will label progressives standing victims unwilling to arm themselves. In the meantime nothing will happen. Not one damn thing.
If we didn’t care enough to thwart the ease in which mass murder can be accomplished after an introverted twerp with bad hair shot up rooms full of first graders why would anyone think change is on the horizon when a self identified radical Muslim, pledged to ISIS, shoots up a bar full of gays? I imagine too many holding the GOP banner are even asking “What’s the problem”? 49 dead gays plus the Muslim who took them out? For many a Trump supporter this is better news than an open invitation for a free round of PBR after the next rally.
Ya, that’s where we are. Who gets the boost? Hillary? Trump? Clinton gets to reinforce her base by vigorously championing gun control. Trump gets to anger (or is that rally) his base with more anti-Muslim, anti-immigration rhetoric and he never has to acknowledge the victims as gay or LGBT. Seems like a draw. I’m not a betting man but if I were my money would be doubled down on what happens next: nothing. We are still faced with the worst two Presidential candidates in the history of the United States each with their gaggle of arrogant supporters in tow, too wrapped in their hate for the opposition to realize just how shitty, sad and dishonest the moron they’ve rallied behind is.
Go on and argue against guns. Or argue that we’d be better off if everyone up to and including grandma shopping at Piggly Wiggly were packing heat. Form your definitions of good guys, bad guys and what qualifies each. Loathe the government or ask for more laws from lawmakers. In the end it does not matter. The only way to stop people from wanting to harm others is to rid the world of animosity or to prevent the dedicated from acting on it. Animosity cannot be killed. It can’t be cured or eradicated and there is no immunization from it. Each and every one of us harbors animosity towards something or someone. The difference is how far we are willing to act on it.
When animosity becomes publicly detectable in a person it is a sign. From a public rant about a racial encounter on a bus to comments made in confidence to private audiences and family they are all signs. Such signs are often apparent and plentiful in very disturbed people. This latest shooter was described as an angry man by coworkers, an ex spouse and even the FBI who had him on their radar. Yet no one did anything. What could they do? Report him to the FBI who already had two open investigations on him, ran the background checks for him to purchase weapons and still did nothing? Full circle… what could the FBI do? Nothing. The man wasn’t a convicted felon. They couldn’t stop him from buying weapons even if they wanted. Same for all of the most recent mass shootings to make headlines, weapons purchased legally.
The American public just better hope that in the future all those with pent up animosity on a level worthy of building an arsenal and killing the innocent already has a criminal record. Otherwise as a nation we’ve decided that regardless of questionable mental health status, the scrutiny of peers or any open public threats that anyone is entitled to have a any amount or type of firearm and ammunition because the second amendment says we cannot stop them. Does that sound rational? Furthermore some argue this limitation should not stop at firearms but any type of weapon should be eligible regardless of any implied or real threats made by the possessor. Clearly the only threats to America come from those with documented felony convictions as this is decidedly, intentionally, our only criteria legally stopping any insane character from arming themselves to kill many. With that kind of embrace on reality I am assured to double my money when nothing happens now or following the next mass shooting, or the next.