The photograph that ought to defeat the NRA
Posted by Thomas Nephew on December 15th, 2012
Children led from Sandy Hook ES in Newtown, CT after shooter rampage, told to keep their eyes shut on their
way out to keep from seeing blood and dead victims, and still following those instructions in the parking lot.
Because, I think, they’re (1) very, very good kids, and (2) they’re scared and in shock because (3) their country
and you and I have screwed up so very badly that we let this happen to them.
There have been so very, very many of these mass killings. Each time, practiced, sneering gun advocates emerge from the woodworks, explaining how it was the shooter, not the gun; any idea you have wouldn’t have prevented this particular crime; any idea you have would have just caused the crime to happen with a different weapon; shame on you for politicizing the tragedy; now is not the time to politicize the tragedy; the Second Amendment is all and only about what they say it’s about; etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
So fondly do I hope, fervently do I pray that this photograph shuts them the fuck up, even just for a merciful hour or two.
It cuts through the bullshit like nothing else I’ve seen since Napalm Girl. People are good natured and generally retreat from vociferous advocates who are very sure of themselves. But when you see this, you don’t want to retreat any more. At least that’s how I feel when I see this. We are such a failure of a country that these kids had to be led out howling and blind from a scene of horror.
People hate guns when they see this photograph, they hate the NRA when they see this photograph, and they hate people making excuses for guns and the NRA when they see this photograph. They remember, sure, anyone who would do this is crazy somehow, but he’d have had a tougher time without a Glock, a Sig Sauer, and an M4 carbine. And while they always kind of knew that, that howling girl and that blind leading the blind chain of good, scared little kids kind of makes you want to NEVER EVER LET THAT HAPPEN AGAIN and cheerfully deck the next person who comes along with sneering, pat argument number 19. At least it does me.
Maybe this is all a long winded way of saying that photograph has me crying tonight, again, for the fourth or fifth time.
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VARIOUS RELATED: Fuck You, Guns (Baker, Jezebel.com via Gizmodo); “The NRA is the enabler of mass murderers” (Seitz-Wald, Salon.com); Five Lies The Gun Lobby Tells You (Beauchamp, ThinkProgress); Now’s the time to talk guns (Walsh, Salon.com); NRA Twitter goes silent (Daley, Salon.com); Fuck Everything, Nation Reports. Just Fuck It All To Hell (Onion)
Category: Post. Tags: gun control.
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December 15th, 2012 at 3:49 pm
[...] thanks to local blogger Newsrackblog for presenting links to several articles about yesterday’s [...]