Primary Election Results … and Murder

May 25, 2022

Primary Election Results … and Murder

guns

Mark Rubin

Y’all don’t here from me very often. I learned “if you don’t have something nice to say, be quiet” early on … but, in 2022 and for the past several years, “nothing new to say” has guided me. If writers who get paid to offer their opinions share what I would have written, no one needs to be hearing from me.

Tonight, I am pleased and angry. So, so angry, but pleased first.

Pleased

Tonight, I am pleased and angry. Pleased first. G-d bless Geogia Rs for choosing Brad Raffensperger as their nominee to serve another term as Secretary of State in Georgia. Voting matters more than anything else in our system. (Eff the Rs who focus on a republic v. a democracy. Goofballs who need a rationale to explain why no one wants what they’re selling.)

I would congratulate Brian Kemp for defeating David Perdue, but that’s like comparing the odor of a sewer v. an abattoir. They both stink to high heaven!

As for Herschel Walker – good runner with a football and, otherwise, a Hot Mess – the fun begins. No views. No sense. His nomination reflects Republican Party contempt for why government exists and how it can help people live better lives. No more. No less.

One more primary result deserves a brief mention. In Texas indicted Attorney General Ken Paxton – anywhere else, I suspect an indicted AG would resign – has not gone to trial for seven years. Seven years! And he beat Jeb Bush’s son by 2 to 1 in the R primary for AG. This man ought to be tried before a jury of his peers. If the evidence does not persuade his jury that he violated the law, he should be free to run for office again. And if the jury convicts him, he needs to be behind bars. Either way, Texas residents deserve an Attorney General untainted by criminal charges.

Which brings us to Texas. Guns. Schools. Mental Health. Etc.

Angry

I’m sure I will offend many with the next 375 or so words. Oh well!

I was almost 11 when Sirhan Sirhan killed Bobby Kennedy and many argued that gun control could not possibly work, as we had too many guns already. Fifty-four years later next month, I hear the same BS from the same people, or their children or grandchildren. (With 100s of millions of additional guns.) Plus, Second Amendment. A third-rate, dishonest mind – the one that inhabited Antonin Scalia’s body, until he passed in 2016 – created an individual right to bear arms not found in American history or jurisprudence.  So much for originalism and textualism!

I wrestled all afternoon with the sense that I elevated 14 children’s deaths – now, 19, and two adults – over the 10 people who died in the Tops market in Buffalo. LB reminded me that children are different. That said, while the Buffalo shooter – who’s alive and will have to account for his acts – was filled with racial hatred, dead is dead. It matters not so much that one group died because a hate-filled young man killed innocent shoppers with a gun, and a mentally ill young man killed innocent children and teachers with a gun.

The problem, obviously, is the guns. They kill, and they have as their only meaningful purpose killing people. Save the BS about the “good guy with a gun.” It happens so rarely that it’s a meaningless pile of nonsense. And in both of the recent incidents trained people with guns tried to stop the shooter, without success. Ditto for “guns don’t kill people, people do.” People without guns don’t kill 10 people in a grocery store, or 21 people in an elementary school.

The Conundrum

Many of us do what we can. We vote, we donate and we talk to others. Unfortunately, none of it gets us anywhere. Certainly, we might have more problems if no one did anything, but that’s cold comfort in these times.

So, here’s my conundrum. What do I – and I think I speak for many – do with those people in our midst whose views we abhor? Friends and family. In my mind they’re complicit but they have no more power than I do. Do I shun them? Quietly or openly? Or, do I simply ignore the issue? Carry on as though nothing happened.

Thoughts welcomed.

UPDATE: Stock prices for gun manufacturers up the day after the latest shooting. Why? Gun owners buy more guns after mass murders, as they fear gun control is a coming. Right! Like Congress will do anything. And, what kind of sickness causes gun owners to buy more guns after 19 children die. Sick! Just plain sick!!!

 

 

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