sick and twisted on top of sick and twisted

Soooooo a crazy loner bastard freaks out, decides to pay the world back for all the mean nasty things it done did him by shooting a whole bunch of people dead...shocking? Of course. the same way that a dip in an ice cold lake is shocking. Surprising? Not really. I mean you knew the water was gonna be cold when you jumped in. Think about the relevant characteristics of the world we live in and it should come as no surprise that some shy, angry, marginalized kid takes out his real/imagined ouch on people who don't have the same real/imagined ouch by shooting 'em.

This sort of thing is just plain old bound to happen, sad, tragic and sucky as it is...you just have to accept that it is a consequence of living in the world that we do. What you do not have to accept are the absolutely absurd, pathetic, repulsive, nasty and plain old stupid arguments that are popping up about how to prevent this sort of deal and/or who to blame for it having happened...Since pointing out shitty arguments and explaining to you why those arguments are shitty is what I do, I’ll consider them over the next couple of days.

That completely insane (and either really stupid or a really good actor) coulter lady offered up an argument very similar to a bunch you are going to be hearing from the gun nuts for the next few months. Coulter's argument basically amounted to this: Mass shootings happen at places where the possession of guns is restricted. Schools and post offices restrict the carrying of weapons. Virginia Tech restricts folks from carrying guns (specifically, they do not honor state granted carry and conceal permits). Therefore mass shootings would either a) not happen at schools if folks were permitted to carry concealed guns on school grounds because insane freaks who intend to go out and kill a bunch of folks are aware of the gun laws and consciously choose to attack places where there are restrictions on concealed weapons knowing they will meet less resistance OR b) the mass shootings would not have been as bad if there were no restrictions on guns at Virginia Tech because there would have been a passer by carrying a weapon who would have gunned down the assailant.

Now, what I have presented above is a pretty generous version of ms. coulter's argument. Her argument gives very little justification as to why there is a causal relationship between gun restriction and mass shootings (she more or less offers the anecdotal evidence that shootings seem to happen at schools and post offices as proof that there is such a relationship...the avoidance of fallacious confusion betwixt corollary and causal relationships is apparently not something they teach them thar politico punditos these days). What allows ms coulter's argument to avoid the goofy assed correlation=causality problem is that she gives us some reasons, in the form of explanations as to why one leads to the other: Mass murderers would be scared away from schools if they didn’t prohibit concealed weapons and/or john rambo would inevitably be walkin' by and 'take the shooter out!' before s/he did too much damage. Soooooo, if we buy her reasons? Her argument is sorta kinda alright...maybe...(in that it might very well prove that it seems as if mass shootings might be less likely if we followed her advice (the notion that it would necessarily diminish the number of or eliminate them is just too idiotice to bother considering)). However, we cannot buy her reasons, because they just plain suck:


Reason a. Mass shooters make a conscious choice to shoot folks at schools because they are well aware that it is less likely that they will run into someone carrying a concealed weapon.
This ought to be a one sentence competency exam for participation in society, if you find it remotely appealing, you should be denied the right to vote, have kids, speak in public and/or belong to a book club.

Given what we know about the folks who have gone batty and shot a bunch of folks at a particular school, how high do you think concern about their well being in the face of someone with a concealed weapon ranks? Umm, I’m guessing right after the concern about what they should wear to prom. These folks have plenty of reasons to be at a school...whether it is where the peers who have committed imagined injustices against them just so happen to be, or it ends up being a place where a convenient number of relatively defenseless little kids hang out (the same kids that are responsible for whatever psychosis inspired hurty hurty in their heady head) on any given week day....the notion that shooters choose that particular location because it is absent the throngs or of warm hearted, well-intentioned concealed weapon carrying vigilantes that patrol our streets unappreciated and unnoticed is just ridiculous (and completely unsubstantiated).
Here is a little secret, just a fact to help you all out. No one other than wing nut gun fetishists even thinks about conceal and carry laws (If you are curious, here is a one question test to determine if you are a gun crazy whack job: Have you, at any time worried that the gun laws applying to handguns/ 'assault rifles' are important to your everyday life, and that your wellbeing and/or happiness would be profoundly and directly impacted by changes in them? If yes, your love of that hot steel in your hand has smooshed your rationality. I hate to be the one to tell you, guns just shouldn't be that important to your average joe.) I know that this is surprising news to those of you who sleep with a 9mm under your pillow and a desert 50 in the nightstand, but no one fucking cares. The rest of the population doesn’t even think about these things (even the violent sociopath crazies that want to kill a bunch of people). Most people assume that everywhere they go is free of folks with a gun in their shoe. If you ask fifty people what the conceal and carry laws in their state are, I guarantee you fewer than ten of them will have any fucking clue…Crazies who want to kill people are worried about other things…like the girl who turned down their advances at the 6th grade school dance, the kid who whooped their ass in gym class or the time that uncle willy diddled them in the broom closet.
In short the first reason is just plain lame for a couple reasons…No one (including, and perhaps expecially, crazy killers) knows or cares about concealed weapons laws, nor do people perceive that those laws have any real effect on the percentage of gun toting vigilantes in any one area (because most folks assume that wherever they go is free of folks with a glock in their sock). SOOO we have no reason to believe that laws regarding concealed weapons have absolutely anything to do with the frequency of mass shootings in particular locations.

Now, because we are the spice and we want to give folks the benefit of the doubt, maybe we can give ms. coulter’s argument a few more and sharper teeth. If she were to have claimed that we ought to turn places like schools into the sorts of places where folks ought to reasonably expect to encounter some sort of armed resistance if they were gonna try to start shooting folks….then sure, that might work. If, for example, we were to require that all teachers/professors carry a weapon then yes I absolutely agree that there would likely be fewer mass shooting deaths taking place in schools. However, I sure as shit do not believe that this is an option that ms. coulter (and/or anyone else) would want for the following reasons:
1. It would cost a lot of money to arm and train all those folks and I can promise you ms coulter doesn’t want more taxes to pay for teacher weapons training (or anything else for that matter).
2. I cannot assure you that school related gun deaths would decrease (given the numbers I can all but promise they would increase) because there would be plenty of accidental deaths, plenty of misplaced and stolen weapons and plenty of crazy ass teachers pulling the trigger.
3. Do you really want teachers to have guns? What happens when the wrong person accidentally walks into the wrong room and spooks dr. nervous nelly into popping off a couple rounds?



Reason b
If there were no laws prohibiting concealed weapons on campus, superhero sam would have been around the corner packing heat and he would have run in, guns ablazin’ and saved the day!
Ok this reason is so stupid that it almost feels like cheating to pick on it. It really ought to be a straw man somewhere because no one would actually make an argument that is this bad. Alas, ms coulter would. It is so obviously the result of delusional gun nut vigilante fantasy that I feel bad that I am going to ruin someones dream life by pointing out its goofiness. Well, here’s the deal, it is nice to fantasize about being superman, but it is just a fantasy. There is absolutely no way of assuring that there would be someone on that campus with a gun, in the right place at the right time to do anything about the Virginia Tech shootings no matter what laws were in place. The notion that merely having had a law in place which would have permitted someone to legally carry a concealed weapon onto that campus would have increased the chances that someone would have actually carried a concealed weapon onto that campus and been in the position to do something to prevent the whole deal is the same argument that my issuing a press release declaring myself eligible for the NBA draft increases the likelihood that I will get drafted.
I hope you al realize how absurd that is.
I hope you realize why that is all that needs to be said.

SOOOOO, what are the morals of today’s story: Woulda, shoulda, coulda is easy as pie and people suck. It is really easy to come up with half assed knee jerk bullshit reactionary solutions to the problems after the fact, particularly when youa re never going to be responsible or accountable for the suggestions you make ever actually being put into place.
Selfish jerks are going to use this horrible deal to try to advance their own personal or political agendas for really terrible reasons. The gun lobby is bound to be saying absurd shit, as are the folks who wnat to ban guns. Lucky for you, you have the spice. So you won’t let anyone get away with shitty reasons. More horrid scumbags trying to use tragedy to advance their own idiocy tomorrow…



smooch

some bite sized poems to distract from the icky

6 haiku about poetry

#1
there there little one
he did not mean it when he
spoke to you with math

#2
some cried when he read
about things wrong with the world
i felt uncomfy

#3
sun through glass through shade
burnt yellow, toasty curry
prettier than smart

#4
do not ever trust
anyone who writes about
politics or sex

#5
birds in the lilac
move like magnets...push pull push
skitter skitter hop

#6
'language poetry'
like carving a pumpkin with
a water balloon