Saturday, December 15, 2012

ROW 80 POST 41 – THE RISING OF A DARK NIGHT, PART 1


This title, as all my titles, is a deliberate play on words. Beginning with the tragic and horrific shooting at the Batman "Dark Knight Rises" in Aurora, Colorado on July 20th, 2012, we now have witnessed the bookend, at least I fervently hope, but I fear that is going to be unmet, at the Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut, where little schoolchildren were the apparent Big Bad, in what has become a depressingly, horrendously, all too-familiar script. 


Unfortunately, even the Batman can't fix this.

I hardly ever, ever write about current events. The fact that I feel compelled to do so, was driven by this one picture; this undid me. Not the Batman. But the Brinkers. I owe dadblunders much. He has been such a wonderful presence in my life. He and his family. They are a reminder of all that is bright and warm and hopeful in life. Families just as great as theirs were destroyed last night. Never, ever forget that. That's how this post came to be. Shame on me for ignoring all other tragedies of this ilk. Shame on me for not speaking out. For not thinking "it will never change." Of course it won't if I write and do nothing. It will never happen again.

Along with the ever-increasing body count, we also have the ever-increasing screeds and alarums coming from the nuts of the right-wing and the NRA, who keep insisting that NOW is not the time to discuss gun control. If not NOW, then WHEN? The last time, 3 days ago, was not the time. It’s never the time; it will NEVER be the time according to the NRA

In fairness, the NRA does promote gun safety and proper usage, but is tangled up with the usual gang of idiots, who vow to hang on to their weapons until they are pried from "my cold, dead hands." That time can't happen soon enough for me, if the recent carnage is any indication of their stability.

All the worn shibboleths are trotted out: “Great, when we outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.” And, “Our 2nd Amendment rights guarantee us the right to bear arms.” Fine. Terrific! But, I’m pretty sure, that as with ALL of our Bill of Rights amendments and the wide language employed deliberately, so that states’ interpretations could be employed, this did NOT mean, "let's use school children for hunting practice."

Let’s get real here. The 2nd Amendment, like all of our amendments uses porous language, purposely to allow it to be used as framework to construct a tighter law. It does not mean, “Gee, let’s just use it to mean whatever the hell we want it to mean and fall back on it whenever we fuck up!” I’m talking to you, GOP and NRA. 

Just because you all think you look sexy as hell running around waving your Glocks and .387 Magnums doesn’t confer you with sexy, or power, or a big wang, either. No one is going to rape your dog or steal your kids. The fact that we have dead school children, CHILDREN killed DELIBERATELY makes no impression on you whatsoever? If I sound provocative, I mean to. I think it's time to bring it on and have a good old-fashioned brawl. Let's put aside polite discourse, since that's getting us absolutely no where and y'all are doing whatever the fuck you want to do anyway. 

I call bullshit on your stupid, neanderthal attitudes, GOP and NRA! Are you listening to me, you morons? You are a bunch of white, mean-spirited, lick-spittle, cock-sucking assholes. You take it up the ass for every corporation and big business concern going and you're too pussy-whipped to stand up and say "THIS IS WRONG!" It's wrong to allow the allow killing machines, i.e. Assault Weapons (side note: CT DOES have an Assault Weapons Ban, so fair is fair.)

Now, having said all of that, I have to put on my devil's advocate hat and state that, the barn door is open, the horse is gone. I realize that these types of guns are easily bought on the black market and through gun lords and once procured, there you are. Still, this illustrates the very point, I think  what I'm trying to state in my confuse-a-what style is this: just because the horse is gone, doesn't mean we burn down the barn. We need to figure out how to corral the horse; carefully. Careless got us into this mess.

But, aside from that; what kind of cold-hearted bastards are you, GOP and NRA, that you cannot put yourselves in the positions of these families who are grieving over their lost children, their brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers and weigh the costs? Are you that granite-hearted? Are you that alienated from the human family? Don’t you see your country is hurting? This affects all of us; we are all grieving and diminished by this tragedy and your response is “Oh, this isn’t the time to talk about gun control.” Then, tell me, when is it the time? When one of your sons or daughters dies by a gunshot? How about then? Is that the time?

4 comments:

Aaron Brinker said...

Mary,

You wrote a wonderful post and if me and my family helped to inspire you to write it...thank you. As we both know, the focus is on the children and families in Connecticut. As a father and a man I cried yesterday when I heard the news of such a senseless tragedy. All I could think about was how the parents must be feeling and about having a my own son that will start school in less than a year. Life is to short to take any of it for granted.

I hope this will get people to become more proactive and realize that so much was lost yesterday in innocence. The young man that did the senseless tragedy is responsible. All of the events make me question a world gone mad. A world where we teach our young boys not to cry or feel emotion. We show them examples through the media of other men that are bumbling idiots or uncaring fathers. Young men are unprepared for the perils of the world and they don't know how to get help when they need it because we are teaching them to "be a man." In my opinion, a man is a person that is not afraid to ask for help or too prideful. I will continue to blog and hopefully show the world that boys and men need positive role models and maybe I can make a difference.

God bless and I sincerely hope you have a great Birthday.

Your friend,

Aaron

ViolaFury said...

Aaron,

Thank you. I am really at a loss for words right now. I am grappling with a foothold to start and cannot find one. The best I can come up with is this: We have got to stop all of this pretense before it's too late. As boys become men, they should be able to express their emotions. Men do cry, men feel and have tender thoughts. The man in my life cries. My father cried and I thought none the less of him for that. Aaron, Thank you. You always cut through the clutter and static. I had a wonderful birthday. People like you and your beautiful family and all of my friends and the love of my life, JC made it so!

Unknown said...

Mary, you know I'm behind you 200% on this. And yeah, 200 can't really be a percent, I guess. Does that make my agreement any less profound. I say NAY, friend. I am behind you, doubly so. I tried to blog about this very topic myself, & met with a small amount of resistance. I'm so lucky --- my darling hubz did the response for me, because I'm just at a loss. How can anyone argue FOR guns at this point? How can anyone seriously hide behind the 2nd Amendment now? But they do. They still do. And I guess they just always will. Shit depresses me, Mary. It really brings me down. So I'm glad you're writing about this topic, too. More people need to be on board with trying to calmly, rationally, peacefully put the god damn horse back in the stupid barn. Thank you!

ViolaFury said...

I think 200% is swell, Andi-Roo, and if anyone can exhibit it, it's you! I, like you, am at a serious loss at how to even begin to discuss this. Ironically, now that I know your sister got mad at you over this, I'm practically homicidal. This is tremendously important and people refuse to even discuss this.

How can we keep making the argument that the 2nd Amendment is sacrosanct? Where does it say that Assault Weapons are viable here in a peaceful (?!?!) society. These are only necessary in a Theater of War! They have no use here whatsoever. The fact that we have had these high-kill counts in the last several mass-shooting in the U.S.A. is due to the fact that some ASSHOLES decided that we needed a bastard step-child of Hitler and Stalin called the "Bushmaster .223." It is a repeating rifle, slightly bigger than a .22, but not a high-velocity weapon. This is designed to do maximum damage, in that the bullets don't pass straight through, but tumble in soft-tissue.

The ONLY reason this gun was manufactured was to kill people and it is not used in war. The implications are pretty sinister, if you ask me. So, if the NRA and all the pro-gun nuts want to insist that even discussing any type of brakes on gun control is some kind of heresy, let them. They're fucking nuts and idiots; people like that need to be reined in. They can scream and yell about how Syria is being killed by it's government, but the last time I looked this isn't Syria, and our Military pledges it's allegiance to the country, not the government. It's a subtle difference, but oh, yeah, it takes a few brain cells to appreciate subtlety.