Everything you could say about our American gun obsession has been said, repeatedly, and nothing has changed. Now that our time living in the pandemic is lurching towards the finish line, we can once again expect the seemingly daily parade of horrors as mass shootings retake their place in the reopened nation. One nightmare will replace the next as quickly as the Boulder shootings replaced the Atlanta shootings in the news cycle and in the American consciousness, only to be replaced by another multiple homicide, multiple injury shooting by, almost guaranteed, some fucking man for some fucking reason. And we'll do the dance with the same steps that we've done for decades, with the back and forth over politicizing the death, with the round and round of what could have been done to stop the shooter, with the up and down over motives real and made-up, all the thoughts and prayers, all the proposed laws that go nowhere once they leave the House of Representatives, with the National Rifle Association somehow still relevant, with right-wing media telling us how guns equal freedom when we all, all of us know the opposite is true.
On Twitter and elsewhere, you'll see the usual liberal reactions. You'll get degradation, like advising gun owners to lube up their rifle barrels and fuck themselves to screaming orgasm with them. Or how a gun is just a dick substitute, a hard tube that makes up for a gun owner's inadequacies in physicality or skill. Hilarious.
Or it could be just general mocking of gun fucks. Like how they get all worked up if someone dares to misuse the term "assault rifle," as if that's what fucking matters. Or what "AR" in "AR-15" really stands for (Asshole Reamer? Armed Rube? Authoritarian Robot?). And fuck you, pedantic gun nuts. You know what guns everyone is talking about when they say "assault weapons"
Or it could be an attempt to actually educate the savage gun freaks, pointing out how little gun violence there is in countries where there happen to be strict laws on gun owner. Or it could be to reason with them, Nicholas Kristof-style. But, really, the worst are a small number of gun owners who are deep-throating the NRA's talking points like it's a fellatio fest at Fleet Week (pre-pandemic). And, of course, elected Republicans.
So instead of all that noise, all that rhetoric, all those sodomy jokes, however fun they might be to make, lemme offer this:
In Florida, a February 2020 poll found that 86% of voters in that state supported universal background checks for all gun purchases. That includes 96% of Democrats and 73% of Republicans. 72% of voters said they "strongly support" the idea, with majorities in both parties agreeing with that sentiment. Yet, even in the wake of the mass murder at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, skeevy Republican Senator Marco Rubio has never supported universal background checks, completely ignoring the wishes of the vast majority of his constituents.
In Indiana, an April 2019 poll found that 90% of voters in that state supported universal background checks for all gun purchases. That includes over 80% of Republicans and over 90% of Democrats. Interestingly, it also includes 88% of gun owners and 73% of NRA members. But Republican Todd Young, one of that shitty state's shitty senators, has an A+ rating from the NRA for, among other reasons, opposing universal background checks. Young has occasionally made noise about supporting some kind of "strengthening" of background checks, but he's never followed through because of course he won't.
In Utah, a September 2019 poll found that 88% of people in that state supported universal background checks for all gun purchases. That includes around 80% of Republicans and nearly 100% of Democrats. And it includes 88% of people who identify as active Mormons. Batshit insane Republican Senator Mike Lee proudly opposes gun laws and thinks that people need guns to prevent the government from taking their guns or some such vaguely treasonous nonsense.
The point here is not that universal background checks would end mass shootings. It would hinder some sales, but it needs to be paired with an assault weapons ban and other measures. But that's not the point of all that information.
What should be clear by now is that universal background checks are not controversial or extreme, no matter how much the corrupt slugfuckers at the NRA screech that they are. In fact, the extremist position is opposing them. You are going against what almost every American believes and wants. Sure, you can call yourself a lone warrior for Second Amendment rights or whatever the fuck you wanna say to make yourself feel better, but, mostly, you're just a dick who's busy rubbing your nipples with gun lobby cash.
And the three dicks up there are all up for reelection in 2022. I'm under no illusion that Utah, Florida, and Indiana are gonna elect Democrats (although Florida is a little more likely and Indiana did have Evan Bayh for a couple of terms not that long ago), but Rubio, Young, and Lee need to feel some fucking pressure on this issue. Here they are, dismissing the overwhelmingly position of 9 out of 10 of their constituents. There's gotta be some pain for doing that, an ad or two calling them extremists who don't give a fuck about the voters of their state.
Because, see, if they end up having to pledge to support background check expansion, and that actually passes through the filibuster-fucked Senate, that opens the door just a little. Then we can move on to the other anti-gun laws that are also incredibly popular. Or we just fucking elect more Democrats and tell the GOP to go fuck themselves with their AR-15s. You know what the AR means now.
