Once Again, Nothing

National gun control legislation is dead again. A month after a shooter massacred 17 students and faculty at Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida, it looks as if Congress will not be taking up any gun control bill, nor will the White House, currently preoccupied with blaming video games for the violence, be sending any measures, other than the insane idea of arming teachers, to Capitol Hill. For a time, there, it looked like this latest tragedy would be the one that finally led to action, but the GOP is nothing if not resilient when it comes to ignoring calls for action that go against the will of their paymasters. Continue reading “Once Again, Nothing”

Insane and Stupid

Here we are again. More children and teachers have been slaughtered in an American school. The death toll was horrific enough this time to get the gun control debate raging once more. At first blush, that sounds cynical, but remember that the shooting last week in Parkland, Florida, which claimed 17 lives, came less than a month after a 15-year-old student in Marshall County, Kentucky shot 16 people in the lobby of his high school, but only two of them died. That story was barely a blip in the news. Continue reading “Insane and Stupid”

The NRA Can Eat a Bag of Dicks

The National Rifle Association has done a fine job of making a fool of itself since the Newtown massacre. Just the other day a new commercial hit the airwaves. It consists of simple visuals with a voiceover attacking President Obama. Here’s the text of the ad:

 

Are the President’s kids more important than yours? Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school? Mr. Obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes. But, he is just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security. Protection for their kids, and gun free zones for ours.

This ad hits some great notes. The tax language communicates to the right wing that this ad is for them, while calling the President an elitist is a classic frame used to attack liberalism. Finally, the NRA has been attacking gun free zones as part of the problem, arguing that if staff are allowed to be armed, school shootings would never occur (ridiculous). But it’s the main message of the ad that has set off so many alarms. Continue reading “The NRA Can Eat a Bag of Dicks”