I didn't think I'd be getting started this early.
A friend posted a message on social media, and I'll paraphrase because it is a friend. In the post he asserts that he's for the right to bear arms, but air guns that resemble actual weapons are a clear sign of gun culture gone insane. He posits that since kids get killed for holding them, we should remove the guns. He goes on to ask if parents fear emasculating their boys if they remove this risk of death at the hands of the police.
My response:
Sure, why not? Take their toys and casually criticize their sexuality and/or imply that their parents are homophobes while we're at it. We can justify that because police have a hard job, so we can't expect them to do it properly. It's so difficult to draw a line between children playing and a terrorist attack that pointing a finger can get actually get a schoolkid expelled, and this is endorsed by the best, most highly educated thinkers in our society. And pockets are only used to conceal things, so they should be banned and everyone should carry items in clear plastic bags, as in many schools already.
And we should teach our kids that the Police are "public servants", which is why we the public should obey every order they give, never assert our rights, and produce any "papers" they might demand, as well as avoid direct eye contact, which they might imagine to be threatening. Any deviation from this behavior, and your death is your own damned fault. Submission and prompt compliance is the only way to be free.
That any portion of that seems reasonable is proof of how far our country has descended.
The "gun nuts" are not the people who understand weapons and educate others with a healthy respect for the documented Constitutional rights which they've had from the very beginning. The "gun nuts" are the ignorant mental cases who live in the fantasy world where a bitten sandwich is a "facsimile weapon". If someone should be locked up, it's those lunatics, as their grasp of reality is at the very best hanging by a mere thread. More than my NRA member neighbors who surround me on all sides, these ignoramuses scare the piss out of me because being so mentally fragile they could snap at any moment. I don't want to go even one step closer to their position.
--==//o0o\\==--
Before you gasp in horror at how I phrased that to a "friend", remember that my friendships are not safe spaces. I know my friends and they know me. I know that this particular friend is a second amendment supporter. He's really asking why do YOU buy the guns when the cops will shoot at anything resembling one.
I prefaced my response with "(This is very slightly exaggerated for effect. The slippery slope is real.)". I mention the slippery slope because please note that this isn't a discussion about gun control. It's a discussion about toys and sporting equipment. I've mentioned before that "everything your kids do, every game they play, is practice for adulthood." That's true. We buy toy guns so that our children will learn to be safer with real ones. Furthermore, when a child has his own he's not as tempted to seek out Daddy's. Toy guns, pellet guns and BB guns instill a comfort and confidence with firearms on a graduated scale. And if you are taught to be cowardly and fearful of them, then that's practice for adulthood, too. And it's a near certainty that any firearm in the hands of an adult so taught will be dangerous and unpredictable, as these are characteristics brought by the shooter.
At its worst, this abject fear fueled by ignorance leaves a human brain in such a state that they cannot tell a threat from a joke; play from assaults; and a weapon from a pastry.
Here's how very slightly that response was exaggerated.
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| This is a dangerous facsimile of a gun according to school officials. |
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| This man is making a threatening and dangerous gesture, according to the standards set for our children. He's also the Dalai Lama. |
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| This isn't what policemen should look like, nor carry themselves. More and more, they carry themselves like SWAT even when in uniform. That's why minority children are taught never to ask for help, do not assist, do nothing to get yourself killed by these men, and it's no longer limited to the minorities |
In other words, not at all. Nevertheless, despite having the teeth pulled from the "gun nut" label, the "right-wing nut jobs" were declared to be out in force. Fine. Here's a gun-control wing-nut. Not a mechanical wingnut... the living breathing variety. Feel free to use it when you're confronted with the label.
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