Gun Nut Shouts ‘The revolution is about to start.’ During Las Vegas Shooting Spree

It’s another shooting in which the debunking of the NRA’s slogan about good guys and guns is debunked again amid more death at the hands of gun crazies.

Two police officers, aka, good guys with guns, were killed in a Las Vegas pizzeria by a bad guy and a bad woman with a gun.  One of the police officers managed to fire back before he died.

After killing the good guys with guns who were eating lunch at the pizzeria, the man and the woman, jumped in their car to gun down more people at a Walmart.  According to the LA Times, a witness heard the male murderer shouted “The revolution is about to start.”

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One witness, said he heard three shots fired.  One bullet killed a shopper, before the bad women with a gun shot and killed her male partner before turning the gun on herself.

Stories about bad people with guns killing people are happening with increasing frequency.  It’s at the point that too many of us, probably just glaze over the story in a search for “real news.”

The first time I wrote about a shooting was Sandy Hook.  At the time, I wrote through tears for the most innocent victims of what was, in reality, an avoidable tragedy.  I hoped that Sandy Hook would bring even the hardest core Teabaggers to realize the need for sensible gun regulations a: are necessary b: are not a violation of the second amendment.  Even the Tea Party’s best friend on the Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia,  recognized that sensible gun regulation is compatible with the second amendment. The tears still flowed as I wrote about a Nazi’s massacre at a Jewish Community Center and a Jewish Retirement home and as I read about the role of gun culture commbined with misogyny in the Santa Barbara massacre.

The naivety and hope have been replaced with the recognition that there is no reasoning with the unreasonable.  As long as we give the NRA leadership a free pass by calling them a lobby group, we are giving them legitimacy.  The reality is the NRA leadership promotes policies  like open carry  that enable domestic terrorists to terrorize people at restaurants, ball parks, schools, churches and anywhere else civilized people congregate. If the NRA’s leadership are not merely enablers, they are collaborators.

Yes, most members of the NRA are people who support  sensible gun regulations.  They recognize that factually speaking, more gun deaths occur in “stand your ground” states than in states that resisted jumping that shark.  They recognize that instead of being number one in science, or in preserving a strong and vibrant middle class, we are left with being the number one country for per capita gun ownership.

The NRA leadership, makes a ton of money promoting a gun culture in which every man, woman and child is brandishing a gun, well except for “smart guns.”  The NRA’s active lobbying against smart guns is a red flag that that their concerns are not with people having a right to defend their homes and families, but rather with advancing the wild west mentality espoused by gun crazed maniacs like Ted Nugent.

The NRA leadership initially said it recognized that brandishing guns in family restaurants is taking second amendment “rights” beyond even the broadest stretch of a sane imagination.  But, it didn’t take long before the NRA backed down to the sociopathic terrorists who brandish those weapons.  They do it because they want to instill a culture of fear among people who recognize that there is something off about a person who brandishes a semi-automatic weapon at a restaurant.  These are the same people who freak out about policies to address domestic terrorism and view the constitution as a document of privileges that provide Teabaggers with the freedumb to impose their doctrine, their religion and their “values” on everyone else.

The second amendment is not a right to terrorize civilized Americans in every public place. People with a history of violence shouldn’t have guns. People who believe that terrorism is justifiable in the name of advancing a “conservative” utopia shouldn’t have guns either.

While we do need to address mental illness, teabaggers within the Republican Party are using mental illness as a shiny object to divert our attention from the need for responsible gun policy.

It’s also a form of stigmatizing people with mental illnesses who, in reality, are more likely to be victims of gun violence than perpetrators.  Perhaps it’s possible that people who are emotionally dependent on guns to demonstrate their masculinity are mentally ill.  If so, let’s have that discussion. However, even if we have that discussion and we address mental illness, that in isolation is not a substitute for sensible gun policies.

At what point, do we recognize that gun culture is a factor?  When can we discuss the role that greed by gun manufacturers plays in the promotion of that culture, and efforts to obstruct responsible gun policy? At what point do we recognize the relationship between a high gun ownership and increased gun related violence?

The reality is this isn’t about “using or losing” the second amendment.  The people who strap their semi-automatic weapons on their backs then go to a child’s baseball game,  a restaurant or a church do so for one reason: to terrorize.  It’s the same politics of terror that we rightfully condemn when used by people and organizations we call terrorists.

After the Santa Barbara killing, the gun nuts declared war on sanity, civility and freedom by stating what we already know.  They believe their “right” to own and brandish their guns trumps our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness but hey, they’re really sorry for your loss.

It’s presented to us as an absolute right to defend home and family – except if you’re a women, as Marissa Alexander can attest or a young black man as Trayvon Martin’s family wishes he was around to attest. It’s an absolute right reserved to white men who feel threatened by young black men, whether they are wearing hoodies or listening to music.

It’s way past time for sensible gun regulation, but it’s also past time that we recognize the difference between conservative politics and fascist style terrorism.

Image: SF Gate

Adalia Woodbury

Former contributor.