Bang-Bang
POST 1085
Sleep Prevention Causal Factor
As reported in the New York Times on July 13, 2024:
Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago who has studied American attitudes toward political violence since the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, conducted a nationwide poll on the topic last month. It found that 10 percent of those surveyed said that the “use of force is justified to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president.” A third of those who gave that answer also said they owned a gun.
Seven percent of those surveyed said they “support force to restore Trump to the presidency.” Half of them said they owned guns.
Note that 3% of all those surveyed both own guns and support presidential preference violence. That’s 3% on each side. That ought to keep you up at night.
The Assassination Attempt – Pop Quiz
Question No. 1 in 3 parts:
Setting aside the invitations into conspiracy theories suggesting Trump planned the shooting to gain additional victim sympathy; and ignoring the self-serving politicians saying there’s no room in our politics for violence, even as they vote against every gun safety bill; and pretending that you don’t see the politicians trying to save their own asses from the bullseye of the next pissy sniper; and ignoring Trump’s consistent championing of violence and retribution; and ignoring the Second Amendment “cold, dead hands” extremists who prove how tough they are by the size of the arsenal in their basements;
How many guns have at last been properly locked up so that wacko sons like Adam Lanza can’t get their hands on Mom & Dad’s assault rifles and pistols? Answer: zero.
Who thinks our kids will be safe when they go back to school next month or that Biden doesn’t risk a copy cat shooter between now and November? Answer: nobody.
Where is there anything in support of safety but the next round of useless thoughts and prayers and the usual Second Amendment justification blather? Answer: nowhere.
Question No. 2 in 4 parts:
Millions are horrified because a former president apparently was slightly wounded. But is his life more important than the lives of:
20 little first grade kids and six teachers? Be sure to check with the parents, as well as the first responders who had to confront that butchery and help to clean it up.
The MAGA Hypocrisy Meter
Or 10 worshipers at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston?
Or 17 at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh?
Or the 17,761 killed or wounded by firearms already this year?
Answer to all: No.
Please, pundits, politicians and gun rights extremists, spare me your abhorrent hypocrisy. You may now go back to fondling your bump stock and skulking in the woods wearing your camos, pretending to be Rambo or a patriotic member of “a well regulated Militia.”
But you aren’t. And you aren’t a justified urban crusader or a victim “hitting back.” You’re just a guy puffed up by guns. Here’s what you must learn.
Everyone understands what guns do. They send slugs of lead through the air at very high speed and make often fatal holes in human bodies. That’s why people respect guns and what they can do. Here’s the “but.”
When you’re strutting around with your assault rifle or your semi-automatic pistol, people respect your guns because they know what they can do. But nobody respects you. You’re just a tough guy wannabee. A poser. A guy who thinks there is a short cut to respect.
NEWSFLASH: There isn’t.
ACTION ALERT: Lose the guns and start being respectful and you’ll begin to be worthy of respect.
If instead you kill or wound someone, even a presidential candidate, your fellow tough guy posers will high five you. The rest of the world will know that you’re just a loser and an a**hole.
“Grift! Grift! Grift!”
The Political Perversion of the Assassination Attempt
From Steve Schmidt, Next Comes The Revenge:
“Trump’s [“Fight, Fight, Fight!” is] tough and iconic in the instant of the response [to the attempted assassination], but who exactly is supposed to be fighting whom? What we are seeing is the use of a criminal act, an evil act, and an assault on our democracy as a justification for calls for more violence.”
Which surprises nobody.
Trump is a showman, so he instantly knew how to use a ding on his ear to promote himself. He has no concern for danger or harm to others.
If you are a supporter of Trump and you follow his raised fist, tough guy “Fight! Fight! Fight!” directive, you are the problem.
Gun Violence And Democracy
From reader Frank Levy:
[Saturday’s] assassination attempt on DJT will almost guarantee his election in November. He will be able to raise massive amounts of money off the attempt on his life and his previously bored and maybe unmotivated followers will want revenge for the affront to their leader and will vote in numbers we have never seen before. And all we have is sleepy Joe as our candidate. We know Joe is a true patriot. He loves America. He can prove it beyond reproach by letting someone, almost anyone but himself, carry the banner for saving our democracy in November.
That “almost guarantee his election” thing – we have to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Older Boomers may recall the pop song You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Until You Lose It. Even if you don’t remember it, most of us have experienced renewed appreciation for something or someone after they’re gone and when we’re feeling the pain of loss.
It’s going to hurt really bad when our rights and our freedoms and our democracy are gone. Trump and the MAGAs are promising to take them away and it’s extremely unsafe to ignore their treasonous words. That’s why we have to saddle up and ride to the rescue of our democracy. We have to STOP THE STEAL!
“Friends do not let friends vote for con artists.”
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– Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), 2016
Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
- Fire the bastards!
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