First things First.
Dec. 22nd, 2012 10:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogNow that a week has gone by, I've gotten a little more reasoned, but also a LOT more angered, about the original Newtown tragedy and the gun nut response to it, respectively. On the good side, the initial grief has passed, I've heard of the memorials and the public's reasoned responses, and closest to home, my niece's husband has finally spent some quality time at home instead of being burdened 24/7 with the how's and why's of it all.
On the other hand, I about threw up in my mouth yesterday morning, listening to Wayne LaPierre, mouthpiece of the Nuts Running America, blaming it all on everything and everyone except the shooter and his arsenal- and then proposing that we turn our schools into rifle ranges of armed teachers and guards to head off the next overarmed Random Bad Guy. Yeah, that worked so well at Columbine. Even worse are things I've heard since- about a lifetime NRA nut in Missouri state government proposing that we enroll all first graders in the NRA and get them packing heat by the time they hit puberty- That's right, kids! Eddie the Eagle says, work with a buddy to feed the ammo into the rocket launcher! And don't forget to aim for the head!- and a luminary in Tennessee who thinks that "secretly arming teachers" is a good idea because, you know, psychotics always Google the school website before going out to be sure Mrs. Rambo isn't teaching there.
None of this is going to happen, but neither is anything going to change. The gun lobby is too strong, too well financed, and our politicians hide under their desks whenever Charlton Heston comes a callin'. So, at least until the next 10 or 20 times it happens again, we are not going to be putting any meaningful limits on the Second Amendment.
But. What we can do- today- without a single bill or a single vote or a single lobbyist influencing things? We can put a small but meaningful addendum into the First Amendment.
----
It's very simple, completely voluntary, and entirely precedented. We already do it in an equally gruesome context, and nobody, except those at the far-dredgy edges of society, has ever complained about it in my lifetime:
If you commit an act of homicide at the highest levels- against children, or protected public servants, or multiple victims- your name will not be revealed. Just as the names of sex offense crime victims are withheld from publication to protect them, we will anonymize you to protect us. No fame, no infamy. Your victim(s) will be known and mourned by their names, but no longer will the anti-christening of YOUR birth become the keyword in remembering their death(s).
Adam Lanza, as of this moment you are dead to me. Likewise the Columbine insanity firm of Harris & Klebold. Tim McVeigh, James Kopp, even Joel Rifkin who I knew. Nice knowin' all of ya. Your names will never again appear in this or any other writing of mine.
Think how the nuts would think if they knew that. That instead of going out in a blaze of glory, they'd be assured of being a rotting or deceased pile of nobody. It wouldn't stop the craziest, but if it had the slightest influence on only one, it would be a free and easy fix for a small part of what ails us.
The "how to" is up for discussion. The media could assign a "John Doe" styling to each one, much as "Alan Smithee" came to have a known-for-unknown meaning in the world of motion picture scriptwriting. I'd even settle for initials, although at the rate we're passing out WMDs without any limitation, we'd probably go through all 676 permutations of first and last initials in a year or two. Anything other than what we're doing now- which is glamorizing the heinousness of the act, and contributing to that special need for notoriety that is such a hallmark of this kind of sociopathic personality. Just ask Dexter Morgan about how many of his victims, themselves murderers, kept trophies or scrapbooks of their kills. We know that J-oops, he who must not be named- did just that.
Every editorial writer who rails about the Second Amendment can join in this acceptable infringement of the First Amendment right now. They would have even greater credibility, in my view, if they all did so, beginning now.
On the other hand, I about threw up in my mouth yesterday morning, listening to Wayne LaPierre, mouthpiece of the Nuts Running America, blaming it all on everything and everyone except the shooter and his arsenal- and then proposing that we turn our schools into rifle ranges of armed teachers and guards to head off the next overarmed Random Bad Guy. Yeah, that worked so well at Columbine. Even worse are things I've heard since- about a lifetime NRA nut in Missouri state government proposing that we enroll all first graders in the NRA and get them packing heat by the time they hit puberty- That's right, kids! Eddie the Eagle says, work with a buddy to feed the ammo into the rocket launcher! And don't forget to aim for the head!- and a luminary in Tennessee who thinks that "secretly arming teachers" is a good idea because, you know, psychotics always Google the school website before going out to be sure Mrs. Rambo isn't teaching there.
None of this is going to happen, but neither is anything going to change. The gun lobby is too strong, too well financed, and our politicians hide under their desks whenever Charlton Heston comes a callin'. So, at least until the next 10 or 20 times it happens again, we are not going to be putting any meaningful limits on the Second Amendment.
But. What we can do- today- without a single bill or a single vote or a single lobbyist influencing things? We can put a small but meaningful addendum into the First Amendment.
----
It's very simple, completely voluntary, and entirely precedented. We already do it in an equally gruesome context, and nobody, except those at the far-dredgy edges of society, has ever complained about it in my lifetime:
If you commit an act of homicide at the highest levels- against children, or protected public servants, or multiple victims- your name will not be revealed. Just as the names of sex offense crime victims are withheld from publication to protect them, we will anonymize you to protect us. No fame, no infamy. Your victim(s) will be known and mourned by their names, but no longer will the anti-christening of YOUR birth become the keyword in remembering their death(s).
Adam Lanza, as of this moment you are dead to me. Likewise the Columbine insanity firm of Harris & Klebold. Tim McVeigh, James Kopp, even Joel Rifkin who I knew. Nice knowin' all of ya. Your names will never again appear in this or any other writing of mine.
Think how the nuts would think if they knew that. That instead of going out in a blaze of glory, they'd be assured of being a rotting or deceased pile of nobody. It wouldn't stop the craziest, but if it had the slightest influence on only one, it would be a free and easy fix for a small part of what ails us.
The "how to" is up for discussion. The media could assign a "John Doe" styling to each one, much as "Alan Smithee" came to have a known-for-unknown meaning in the world of motion picture scriptwriting. I'd even settle for initials, although at the rate we're passing out WMDs without any limitation, we'd probably go through all 676 permutations of first and last initials in a year or two. Anything other than what we're doing now- which is glamorizing the heinousness of the act, and contributing to that special need for notoriety that is such a hallmark of this kind of sociopathic personality. Just ask Dexter Morgan about how many of his victims, themselves murderers, kept trophies or scrapbooks of their kills. We know that J-oops, he who must not be named- did just that.
Every editorial writer who rails about the Second Amendment can join in this acceptable infringement of the First Amendment right now. They would have even greater credibility, in my view, if they all did so, beginning now.
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no subject
Date: 2012-12-22 03:57 pm (UTC)According to Grand Dragon LaPierre, the problem is violent books, games, movies, and TV shows, not a glut of high-powered weapons designed not to hunt ducks or protect your paranoid self, but to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible. Soften up the beach for the troop landing. LaPierre thinks we ought to jettison the First Amendment to protect his benighted interpretation of the Second.
Feh! I don't own a gun and won't have one in the house. Instead, I vote to pay taxes and fund a local police department of trained professionals to protect not just myself, but my neighbors and my town.
Want to live safely? Don't be a paranoid doomsday prepper!
no subject
Date: 2012-12-22 11:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-22 11:21 pm (UTC)ETA.Ooh! Even better:
Santorum.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-23 11:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-23 03:51 am (UTC)Perhaps if we assigned them a code -- say, Monkey Scrotum -- and only referred to them by that, forever. Remove the twisted glory of the act.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-23 01:28 pm (UTC)"One Santorum, two Santorum, three Santorum, four...."