“I used to think it was possible for an artist to alter the inner life of the culture. Now bomb-makers and gunmen have taken that territory.”
― Don DeLillo
So it has happened again, this time in Aurora, Colorado with another well armed American whack job and an arsenal. The early news reports quickly dismissed the possibility of the always shadowy “second gunman” who usually makes a brief round in the early coverage of what is now a numbing signature American ritual - the murder and mutilation of the innocent. Most of them young.
There may have been no second shooter, but there were plenty of accomplices to Thursday night’s mass shooting. The Colorado shooter was backed up and goaded onward by a virtual army of cheerleaders. You can begin with the 4 million-plus members of the National Rifle Association who, through their dues and cult like devotion to the NRA political agenda, have triple-tapped any chance for sane gun laws in this nation.
Then, of course, the shooter was given cover by a large segment of the 535 members of Congress who wet themselves every time the NRA gives them a call. Hell, even after one of their own was gunned down, along with a federal judge, a young child and about a dozen others, our supposed representatives rolled over on their back to get a good belly rub from the clawed paw of the lobby of evil.
Our deranged movie goer was well armed with two Glock handguns, an AR-15 assault rifle, shotgun and enough large capacity magazines that he didn’t have to reload as he methodically gunned down the innocent, shot after shot after sickening shot. So we have to give credit to this dark soul’s armorer — the American firearms industry and ammunition makers. We may not still manufacture much in this nation, but by God and Annie Oakley, from Saturday night specials to airborne drones, we can manufacture affordable, high quality, methodically reliable instruments of death.
And, most importantly, we can make good money doing it. Never, ever, forget the money.
And don’t forget the drill instructors of violence found in the “Grand Theft Auto” death cult world of video gaming who massage the brain to deadly intent, bleaching it of compassion or empathy.
Oh, yes, this shooter, as with all the other spawn of the American mad dog gun and death culture in Tucson and Virginia Tech and just down the road from Aurora at Columbine High, had plenty of pals backing him up.
I say this as a gun owner and former hunter. I believe in the Second Amendment but I don’t believe in the twisted fetish of profitable death it has become in the boardrooms of the NRA, the gun industry, congress and state legislatures across the country where any attempt to moderate or bring some tidbit of sanity into the gun debate is framed as a blind march to Stalinism. The NRA isn’t a defender of the constitution, it is a purveyor of the death culture.
And big money. Don’t forget the money. They never do.
I say all this as a former member of the NRA. I also say this as someone who counseled kids from Albuquerque’s south barrio who lost parents, friends, siblings and their sanity to the gun culture. I say this as someone who knew a 17 year-old kid who — like an old man at the end of his time — will wear a colostomy bag for the rest of his life because of a gut shot wound.
I guarantee I will get emails within an hour of this post from a couple conservative readers thundering about my liberal stupidity, intoning that the problem is not guns it’s unenforced gun laws. Lock ‘em up, they will bellow. Good God, with the largest prison population in the world by both per capita and raw numbers - larger than China, way more than Russia — if locking people up were the answer America would be like an ice cream social at Sunny Brook Farm.
Give it up boys, that rusty scooter doesn’t roll.
There are two co-conspirators to the Aurora shootings for whom I have special loathing; the two supposed leaders vying for the presidency of this violent and lost land. Upon news of the latest preventable gun tragedy, both were on script solemnly invoking the blessings and peace of the Almighty, assuring us they have the victims and their families securely tucked into their daily prayer schedule. They even went so far as to pull some of their nastier political advertising off the Colorado airwaves … for a day or two. Also staying on script, neither had the courage or common moral deceny to call for serious discussion and debate about bringing some sanity to America’s homicidal gun laws.
What hypocrites.
What mewling little boys.
What chickenshits.
Both stand weak-kneed that they might stray a syllable off script and come into the crosshairs of the NRA. I don’t know if there is a hell or not, but if so both of these moral eunichs have earned a blazing stool in the hottest depths of the place.
One thing I do know, they both (re)confirmed they are unqualified to lead anything other than their nose to a lobbyist.
Stay tuned. The copy-cat killing will come in the next week or so, brought to you by the NRA, their members, most of Congress, the gun and entertainment industry and a national cowardice that is willing to offer up the young for a dollar … again and again and again.
3-Minute Video - IN OUR HEARTS - NU NORTH: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RMhAalVhGc
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