Yet another mass shooting, once again in a school; and some politicians are whining and moaning that something should be done, but nothing ever is done! One obvious reason: Too many politicians covet the funding from the NRA and gun manufacturers’ lobbies. That’s just more evidence about how greed and power keep America sliding down into that dark cesspool of fascism. Most gunowners have fascist tendencies, especially NRA members. Even Adam Kinzinger, famous for dissing that “f&^%ing moron,” owns an AR-15, God knows why!
I guess one can’t even express outrage about this anymore. I was doing so on Twitter on 5/25 when they censored my tweets. Damn them! They’ve sold out to Elon Musk, also a suspected fascist (many corporate CEOs lean that way), so maybe that’s not surprising. I continued my outrage via responses to others’ tweets, though, so take that, Twitter!
Let’s start with the sad facts. While I often criticize the NY Times about what they consider as news that’s fit to print, some recent (5/27) data about the gun problem in America needs to be better known. First, the federal government supports gun manufacturers. A lot of this support comes mostly from the Good Ole Piranhas’ senators and representatives (some Dems like Manchin and Sinema are cheerleaders for the gun manufacturers as well). Pandemic loans of at lest $1 million went to 23 arms makers; and Daniel Defense, the scurrilous maker of the gun used in the Texas Massacre, received more than s $3 million loan from the Paycheck Protection Program in early April 2020. No mention of which senators or representatives were responsible for the loan, of course, but the company is based in Georgia, a red state, so undoubtedly a fascist corporation.
We can obtain a better idea about which Good Ole Piranhas are in bed with Satan when it comes to guns by examining which senators receive the most funding (again NY Times data). One finds the usual suspects: Mitt Romney, Utah, the liberals’ hope, leads the list with $13.6 million; Richard Burr, N.C., $7 million; Thom Tillis, N.C., $5.6 million; Roy Blunt, Mo., $4.6 million; Joni Ernst, the Iowa pig-lady, $3.7 million; Marco Rubio, Fl., $3.3 million; Robert Portman, Ohio, $3,1 million; Bill Cassidy, La., $2.9 million; Todd Young, Ind., $2.9 million; Patrick Toomey, Pa., $1.5 million; the coup supporter Josh Hawley, Mo., $1.4 million; “Moscow Mitch” McConnell, Ky., $1.3 million; and Ron Johnson, Wis., $1.3 million. Note that I’ve only listed senators who have received more than $1 million in funding, quite a bunch of deplorable bastards. All of them have an A or A+ rating from the NRA. The list in the Times continues with other GOP senators receiving less funding probably because they haven’t had as much time in the Senate to get their hand too deep in the NRA’s pocket.
And does the world see how the US is controlled by fascist gun lovers? How could they not! The number of mass shootings in developed countries from 1998-2019 (from the same edition of The Times) tells the story: the US had 101 during that period, while the next highest, France and Germany, had 8 and 5, respectively. The UK only had 1 (one!) in that time period, which proves my tragic point that the UK is far better than the US when it comes to gun control!
There are some obvious things US politicians should be able to do: Ban military-style weapons and high-capacity magazines, for example, or decree universal and comprehensive federal background checks. Red-flag laws might also help and at least tell GOP politicos to shut the fuck up about gun massacres just being a mental health problem (as if they’re willing to pay for that—maybe one reason they’re anti-abortion is because they want people to have more babies to serve as targets?). All of those legislative acts would be applauded by anyone tired of this shit, including the police and FBI. Not happening, of course, because politicians, especially the Good Ole Piranhas, would have to kiss their NRA blood money goodbye. Fascists love guns, and fascists like McConnell and McCarthy and other Piranhas probably think they’d commit political suicide if they make one move towards common-sense gun control.
SCOTUS or Congress (through enacted laws because the fascist judges on SCOTUS are gun nuts too) should also give the Second Amendment back the Founding Fathers’ original meaning, not Scalia’s. The Founding Fathers in the Second Amendment only recognized the importance of armed militias in the American Revolution. We still do…in our National Guards! There’s nothing in the Second Amendment that says private citizens have the right to bear arms! Period. Scalia cherry-picked those few precedents that claimed that! Again, how ironic it is that the UK, whose England we fought in the Revolution, now has saner gun laws than the US. What our country now has is chaotic fascism!
None of this will change. Like I said, fascists love guns, and they are trying to control everything in the US. Dems might rejoice that Kemp kicked Trump in the goolies in Georgia, but Kemp will never stand up to the NRA either (remember, that little gun manufacturer is in his state). (In that same primary, Marjorie Taylor Greene won. Georgians are still fascists for the most part, although some are beginning to recognize that Trump’s a complete moron.)
Cry, The Beloved Country was Alan Paton’s plea for sanity in South Africa. Sane people here in the US should use that title to describe our dark future as a nation at this moment. Guns are only one problem out of many in modern America, but American fascists will continue to use them to kill sane and innocent Americans, indirectly or directly.