Dem
47
GOP
53
There was, as everyone knows by now, yet another school shooting this week. Two elementary school students at a Catholic school in Minneapolis were killed, with 18 others injured, by a shotgun-wielding assailant who then turned the gun on themself.
We don't like to ignore these stories, but we don't like to write about them, either, because what is there to say that hasn't already been said a million times? From the left, there were really just two basic responses: (1) How many more kids have to die before this country does something about gun violence? and (2) Take your empty "thoughts and prayers" and shove them.
From the right, which is obviously the more aggressively pro-gun faction, and so is put on its heels by tragedies like this, the responses were also predictable. Those responses change a little each time, to fit the particular circumstances, but it's nothing that even a beginning screenwriter couldn't knock out with, say, 2 minutes of typing time. As noted, the most common response was the religious stuff. Mostly that meant thoughts and prayers, though a few right-wingers went further. Former congressman and current Fox entertainer Trey Gowdy, for example, remarked that "the only thing that can give us any modicum of peace" is that the children are now with Jesus. This is all pretty tone deaf. First, it makes it look like people are using the murder of innocent children to proselytize their religion. Second, if you're trying to emphasize the power of prayer and the love of Jesus, a circumstance in which religiously observant Christian children were killed while in the middle of prayer, is probably not the best example to use.
Other folks on the right worked hard to pair their efforts at deflection with their own personal biases and pet issues. It is de rigueur, these days, for pro-gun folks to decree that the problem is mental illness and not guns. In this case, the shooter was someone who identified as trans, and their manifesto was full of angry words about trying to cope with that. Since gun violence is caused by "mental disorders," per many on the right, and since being trans is also a "mental disorder," according to many of those same individuals, the shooting incident was an opportunity to pair both things. For example, Scott Jennings, who is CNN's resident heel/right-wing reactionary, declared that the shooting happened because the shooter's mental illness (being trans) was encouraged, rather than being treated. What an absolutely vile thing to say. CNN should be ashamed of themselves for continuing to give him a platform.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried a similar kind of maneuver, with his personal issues and pet biases. Also embracing the "mental illness" angle, RFK Jr. speculated that the shooter might have been triggered by taking serotonin reuptake inhibitors (in other words, antidepressants). The normally mild-mannered Sen. Tina Smith (DFL-MN) was infuriated by this, and got on eX-Twitter to post this PG-13 rated response:
I dare you to go to Annunciation School and tell our grieving community, in effect, guns don't kill kids, antidepressants do.
Just shut up. Stop peddling bullshit. You should be fired.
Hard to disagree with anything she wrote there.
There is, of course, no chance that the U.S. will ever become a gun-free country in the way that, say, the U.K. is. At least, not in the lifetime of anyone reading this. This being the case, the folks who would like to see the country do better have long ago accepted that the only possible change is greater restrictions on who can buy guns, how easily, and which guns they can buy. The pro-gun folks, by and large, have concluded that ANY limit on gun ownership, no matter how well justified, is the beginning of a slippery slope to a gunless society. So, they tend to resist any changes whatsoever. Indeed, after his "at least they're with Jesus" comment, Gowdy added this:
We're going to have a conversation of freedom versus protecting children. How many school shootings does it take before we're going to have a conversation about keeping firearms out of—it's always a young white male. Almost always.
It is instructive that he was excoriated on eX-Twitter by right-wingers for this, many of whom called for Fox to fire him.
In the end, the pro-gun forces are single-issue voters, and any Republican who dares support even the mildest gun-control puts their political future in peril. It wasn't always that way—the Brady Bill was the work of a Republican—but it's that way now. It would be nice, however, if Republicans would agree to keep their yaps shut after school shootings (and other mass shootings), instead of all this speculation and spin, as a kindness to the families of the victims.
Since repealing the Second Amendment is not in the cards, the only route we can even conceive of to end all these senseless killings is for the Democrats to expand the Supreme Court to 15 justices next time they get the trifecta (which means making the Republicans actually filibuster in July with the heat on until they drop). Then get some district judge to rule that the Second Amendment applies only to the muzzle-loading smooth-bore muskets available in 1789 and have the new Supreme Court uphold that. (Z)