40 Percent Of Republicans Fine With Letting Kids Die For Their Freedoms
And not just in wars!
After every major mass shooting, we ask the same things, mostly "Why do we have to keep living/dying this way?" The obvious answer to that is "Because Republicans won't let us have gun control," which leads to the question, "Why would anyone else choose to live/die this way when we don't actually have to?"
It turns out that answer, for nearly half of all Republicans, is simply that they'd rather live with mass shootings than live without access to the guns used to commit them.
A CBS/YouGov poll released this week found that 40 percent of Republicans and 28 percent of all Americans overall believe that mass shootings are something we "unfortunately have to accept as part of free society."
This, of course, raises the question "But how do you enjoy a free society if you are dead?"
The answer is harsh, but not entirely unexpected. You'd think with a supermajority of people feeling that this was not tolerable and something they couldn't live with, we would have implemented gun control by now in order to prevent it from happening. Obviously. But that 40 percent of Republicans is a real sticking point!
While most gun control opponents probably don't like to think of this as an entirely transactional situation, it is absolutely a transactional situation. We have the ability to stop mass shootings and we don't, because less than a third of Americans have decided that they would rather live in a world where mass murders are a common occurrence than a world where they do not have complete and total access to whatever guns they want.
US children are dying, are sacrificing their very lives, so that these people have the "freedom" to buy an assault rifle or to not undergo a background check. Those bodies are the price we all pay so that a bunch of yahoos don't have to be remotely inconvenienced when trying to buy a weapon that exists for no other reason than to kill a lot of people in a very short amount of time (and fine, feral hogs), or so that they can retain the fantasy that having guns means that they can overthrow the government, despite the fact that trying to overthrow the government is illegal. That is why these children have to die. That is why this keeps happening.
Last week, Rep. Louie Gohmert shouted , “How dare you. You think we don’t have hearts?” at Democrats in Congress who suggested that perhaps those who oppose gun control don't care that much about kids who die. Perhaps those poll results can help him understand why that might be.
The poll also found that "Democrats see gun-related items, such as more background checks and banning semi-automatic weapons, as policies that would do 'a lot' to help prevent mass shootings," while "Republicans think better mental health treatment, armed security and more religion in people's lives would be more effective."
Yes, if there is one thing known to prevent senseless killing ... it is religion.
That aside, if Republicans really want more access to mental health care, they should perhaps consider supporting Medicare For All so that people can have access to that. Or barring that, they should think about not cutting mental health funding every chance they get. Unless, you know, they're just entirely full of shit and want something to blame other than guns.
One thing that was pretty nice about the poll is that a majority of Americans agreed that people under 21 should not be allowed to own guns like AR-15s, with the biggest chunk, 45 percent, saying it should be over 25.
Now, I don't think they should be legal at all, but if we don't think people under the age of 25 are responsible enough to rent a car at the airport, how in hell are they responsible enough to own an assault rifle?
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And thank you for your pointless navel-gazing. You may be willing to lie back and think of baseball while the gun-humpers castrate any efforts to implement real substantive change which might save a few children's lives. Me, I’m angry, and I ain’t gonna hide it.
If you are going to do something which is obviously going to be challenged in court, you might as well make it something substantive, which could have a real effect, like banning assault weapons entirely. In THIS case the shooter turned 18 and bought a gun. In hundreds of others he or she got it from their parents, or from a private sale, or stole it, or any of a myriad other ways to get your penis extension. Or for fucks sake it was someone over 21 who fucking did the killing! We’re looking too narrowly; chasing the “over 21 to buy a gun” unicorn won’t do shit to stop the next shooting. It’s just as much of a distraction as “mental health” or “video games.”
But politicians will politician.