Little rant 1-13-14

The plague or the flu kicked The Professor about for a few days so the delicately phrased and tightly written rant from a few days ago is sadly out of date and we’ll just have to make do with this off the cuff slice of gibberish. To wit:

It seems one of the best ways to keep the heat on the NRA and the vast fearful tribe of gun nuts they represent on the defensive is to keep letting them on national television and spout off. They can’t control themselves and within minutes start to threaten violence against unnamed forces coming to take their guns in a manner that makes the average person uneasy with the notion of these folks being armed with rubber bands, never mind the latest in man killing weaponry.

As the bodies cool at Newtown the NRA is ramping up both the “black guy in the white house is coming to take away your guns” and the “gun control = Hitler” memes along with the “bad people will find ways to do bad things so there is no point to trying anything.” Meme which given America’s mythic ‘can do’ attitude is a bit of a poser.  There is of course a difference between acknowledging that a law, which is something drawn up by human beings cannot be perfect and this bullshit. One of the major problems with gun over the last few years is that Congress at the behest of the gun sellers has put in major loopholes with the gun sellers then exploit the hell out of. That is something that can be fixed. At a minimum the Gun Show exemption needs to go bye bye.  And we add vigorous enforcement of said laws is also part of the solution.

I also suspect that the there will a continual attempt to distance gun control from the horror at Newtown. Soon there will be a sorrowful column by I expect David Brooks about how uncivil the gun control folks are and how they are exploiting the tragedy instead of understanding that the right wing is correct and that nothing can be done. This is the kind of thoughtful very important centrism that ends with children being riddled with bullets by a crazy person with a rifle. And I would counsel the gun control folks to continue to beat the NRA and their fellow travelers over the head with this very dirty stick (to quote Seven Days in May) as this incident (unlike the others) has changed the landscape. Let’s not go back as that merely sets the stage for another horror.