Tuesday, March 28, 2023

American Exceptionalism

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari)
As I've said so often after a momentous event in US or world history, there are often iconic images that are taken at those precise moments or their immediate aftermath that become symbolic of that event. There's Alfred Eisenstaedt's immortal photograph taken on VJ Day at Times Square, one that expressed the relief and joy of a nation at the end of a four year-long war. And, six months before that, Joe Rosenthal's equally immortal photograph of the raising of the flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima.
   The lead image you see above is fast becoming the iconic photograph of the Covenant School shooting in Nashville yesterday. It perfectly expresses a child's horror and grief at having visited on her unimaginable and senseless violence when all she wanted to get was an education. When you look at the faces of survivors of school shootings, they always have that same look no matter the location- Disbelief that this has finally happened to them.
     Even though we're just 87 days into 2023, this has already been the 33rd school shooting. We've had over 130 so far this year. Brady United, which compiles such statistics, defines a mass shooting as when there are four or more injuries or deaths not including the shooter. The one in this case, a transgender man named Audrey or Aiden Hale, murdered three small children and three faculty members before being shot and killed by Nashville police (Warning: explicit video).
      Here are the facts, in case you're not already acquainted with them:
    The United Kingdom hasn't had a mass school shooting since 1997, Bill Clinton's first term. Australia hasn't seen a mass shooting since they enacted strict gun control laws after the Port Arthur shooting in 1996, and that was with a conservative Parliament and Prime Minister. The United States is the only country in which there are more guns than people (over 400,000,000 for 330,000,000.) And even though we make up just 4% of the world's population, we own roughly 45% of the world's guns.
     We're the only developed, industrialized nation on earth that allows its citizens to carry and brandish military-grade assault-style weapons whether it's open carry or concealed and often without permits or proper training. 45,000+ Americans die from gun violence every year and at the rate we're going, we'll perhaps top 50,000 by New Year's Eve. That's enough to fill Yankee Stadium. And, most tragically, we're the only nation on earth where the leading cause of death among children is gun violence, overtaking car accidents or disease.
     Plainly, more guns and easier access to them and ammunition is not the answer. Eliminating safety training, creating loopholes in the background check process and lowering the age so kids barely 18 years-old can buy AR15s is also not the answer. We learned that after Uvalde and which came about thanks to the Texas legislature's and Greg Abbott's murderous initiatives.

But It's All About the Kids

Yesterday's Christian school shooting came about almost exactly two years to the day since Gov. Bill Lee signed a sweeping gun deregulation bill essentially allowing Tennesseans to carry whatever gun they like whether open carry or concealed even without a permit or federal restrictions, which don't exist, by the way. We don't even have a national registry, unlike many other industrialized nations.
    And in the wake of every school shooting, you can count on Republicans like Steve Scalise to say that grabbing guns aren't the answer (Despite Australia's own gun buyback program that took 565,000 guns off the streets in '96 that greatly contributed to them not having another mass shooting since that year) and fake macho men like Ken Buck challenging Joe Biden to come to his office to take his own AR. 
     Or we hear asshats like Tim Burchett who seem to think the answer is more prayer and a Christian revival (I guess he didn't get the memo from the NRA that Nashville shooting took place in a Christian charter school in which prayers, as usual, didn't make a lick of difference). Or to come across a picture of Andy Ogles, in whose district the shooting occurred, posing with guns drawn with his family.
    No, right wingers want to distract you from the real root cause of gun violence, such as lack of prayer in the schools, mental illness and gun free zones. Then they turn around after waxing piously about protecting our children while they ban Critical Race Theory and books in libraries.
     Because it's all about the kids, you see.
    According to Nashville Police Chief John Drake, Audrey Hale was able to legally buy seven weapons from five different locations while under a doctor's care for emotional issues. Just based on HIPAA regulations and doctor-patient confidentiality, the police can't very well be knowledgeable on who's getting psychiatric care and for what. So, to know who the likeliest candidates for gun violence are would virtually require that HIPAA laws be violated.
    Again, we are the only country that refuses to ban guns but is fanatical about banning books and critical race studies that simply aren't taught in K-12. Republicans are absolutely obsessed with making sure the kids don't learn about slavery or Rosa Parks or the Civil Rights Movement or about teh gays and that especially goes for you RuPaul types and your grooming drag time story hours.
     Because it's all about the kids. At least, the ones that are still above ground.

1 Comments:

At March 29, 2023 at 11:37 AM, Anonymous CC said...

Too bad Scalise's assailant didn't see his guns grabbed from him before he went on a rampage.

Which shows us: even if one of their own is shot, Republicans won't budge from their pro-gun stance.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home

KindleindaWind, my writing blog.

All Time Classics

  • Our Worse Half: The 25 Most Embarrassing States.
  • The Missing Security Tapes From the World Trade Center.
  • It's a Blunderful Life.
  • The Civil War II
  • Sweet Jesus, I Hate America
  • Top Ten Conservative Books
  • I Am Mr. Ed
  • Glenn Beck: Racist, Hate Monger, Comedian
  • The Ten Worst Music Videos of all Time
  • Assclowns of the Week

  • Links to the first 33 Assclowns of the Week.
  • Links to Assclowns of the Week 38-63.
  • #106: The Turkey Has Landed edition
  • #105: Blame it on Paris or Putin edition
  • #104: Make Racism Great Again Also Labor Day edition
  • #103: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Toilet edition
  • #102: Orange is the New Fat edition
  • #101: Electoral College Dropouts edition
  • #100: Centennial of Silliness edition
  • #99: Dr. Strangehate edition
  • #98: Get Bentghazi edition
  • #97: SNAPping Your Fingers at the Poor edition
  • #96: Treat or Treat, Kiss My Ass edition
  • #95: Monumental Stupidity double-sized edition
  • #94: House of 'Tards edition
  • #93: You Da Bomb! edition.
  • #92: Akin to a Fool edition.
  • #91: Aurora Moronealis edition.
  • #90: Keep Your Gubmint Hands Off My High Pre'mums and Deductibles! edition.
  • #89: Occupy the Catbird Seat/Thanksgiving edition.
  • #88: Heil Hitler edition.
  • #87: Let Sleeping Elephants Lie edition.
  • #86: the Maniacs edition.
  • #85: The Top 50 Assclowns of 2010 edition.
  • #(19)84: Midterm Madness edition.
  • #83: Spill, Baby, Spill! edition.
  • #82: Leave Corporations Alone, They’re People! edition.
  • #81: Hatin' on Haiti edition.
  • #80: Don't Get Your Panties in a Twist edition.
  • #79: Top 50 Assclowns of 2009 edition.
  • #78: Nattering Nabobs of Negativism edition.
  • #77: ...And Justice For Once edition.
  • #76: Reading Tea Leaves/Labor Day edition.
  • #75: Diamond Jubilee/Inaugural Edition
  • #74: Dropping the Crystal Ball Edition
  • #73: The Twelve Assclowns of Christmas Edition
  • #72: Trick or Treat Election Day Edition
  • #71: Grand Theft Autocrats Edition
  • #70: Soulless Corporations and the Politicians Who Love Them Edition
  • Empire Of The Senseless.
  • Christwire.org: Conservative Values for an Unsaved World.
  • Esquire's Charles Pierce.
  • Brilliant @ Breakfast.
  • The Burning Platform.
  • The Rant.
  • Mock, Paper, Scissors.
  • James Petras.
  • Towle Road.
  • Avedon's Sideshow (the new site).
  • At Largely, Larisa Alexandrovna's place.
  • The Daily Howler.
  • The DCist.
  • Greg Palast.
  • Jon Swift. RIP, Al.
  • God is For Suckers.
  • The Rude Pundit.
  • Driftglass.
  • Newshounds.
  • William Grigg, a great find.
  • Brad Blog.
  • Down With Tyranny!, Howie Klein's blog.
  • Wayne's World. Party time! Excellent!
  • Busted Knuckles, aka Ornery Bastard.
  • Mills River Progressive.
  • Right Wing Watch.
  • Earthbond Misfit.
  • Anosognosia.
  • Echidne of the Snakes.
  • They Gave Us a Republic.
  • The Gawker.
  • Outtake Online, Emmy-winner Charlotte Robinson's site.
  • Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo
  • No More Mr. Nice Blog.
  • Head On Radio Network, Bob Kincaid.
  • Spocko's Brain.
  • Pandagon.
  • Slackivist.
  • WTF Is It Now?
  • No Blood For Hubris.
  • Lydia Cornell, a very smart and accomplished lady.
  • Roger Ailes (the good one.)
  • BlondeSense.
  • The Smirking Chimp.
  • Hammer of the Blogs.
  • Vast Left Wing Conspiracy.
  • Argville.
  • Existentialist Cowboy.
  • The Progressive.
  • The Nation.
  • Mother Jones.
  • Vanity Fair.
  • Salon.com.
  • Citizens For Legitimate Government.
  • News Finder.
  • Indy Media Center.
  • Lexis News.
  • Military Religious Freedom.
  • McClatchy Newspapers.
  • The New Yorker.
  • Bloggingheads TV, political vlogging.
  • Find Articles.com, the next-best thing to Nexis.
  • Altweeklies, for the news you won't get just anywhere.
  • The Smirking Chimp
  • Don Emmerich's Peace Blog
  • Wikileaks.
  • The Peoples' Voice.
  • Dictionary.com.
  • CIA World Fact Book.
  • IP address locator.
  • Tom Tomorrow's hilarious strip.
  • Babelfish, an instant, online translator. I love to translate Ann Coulter's site into German.
  • Newsmeat: Find out who's donating to whom.
  • Wikipedia.
  • Uncyclopedia.
  • anysoldier.com
  • Icasualties
  • Free Press
  • YouTube
  • The Bone Bridge.
  • Powered by Blogger