Soft targets
Vance thinks mass shootings are just a fact of life, like the weather. Nothing we can do about it, folks!
Vance’s comments – in the wake of the latest deadly shooting, at Apalachee High School in Georgia – ignited a political row after Democrats depicted them as evidence of a lack of empathy while Republicans claimed the remarks had been taken out of context.
Vance called for more security measures in schools without mentioning gun control, while Democrats including Kamala Harris and the US president, Joe Biden, want a ban on assault-style rifles, more background checks, and other gun safety action.
Asked about the Georgia shooting while speaking at a campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona, on Thursday evening, Vance said: “I don’t like this. I don’t like to admit this. I don’t like that this is a fact of life. But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realise that our schools are soft targets.”
Well it’s not a “fact of life” that any damn fool can go into a gun shop and come out armed as if for war. It’s a decision, an insistence, that it’s a human right to stroll around in public with an assault rifle.
Vance continued: “We’ve got to bolster security at our schools so that a person who walks through the front door … and wants to kill a bunch of children – they’re not able to. As a parent, do I want my kids’ school to have additional security? No, of course I don’t. But that is increasingly the reality that we live in.”
The remarks, which were prefaced by an attack on the pro-gun control stance of Harris, the Democratic nominee for president in this November’s election, were immediately seized on by the Harris campaign.
Yeah gee why would we not want to turn schools into armed camps rather than having laws against weapons of mass murder?
Trump, responding to a question on the Georgia shootings at a Fox News town hall meeting from the Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday, said: “It’s a sick and angry world for a lot of reasons and we’re going to make it better, and we’re going to heal our world.”
Is there anyone less likely to make the world less sick and angry than Donald Trump? He feeds on sick anger, he fosters sick anger, he whips up sick anger, he loves sick anger as long as it’s not directed at him.
Look, if people don’t have ready access to weapons of war, how are they going to kill their neighbors for doing something tyrannical like electing another black president?
Well, goollee Mr Vance. I just don’t understand why it’s only a “fact of life” in one, just one, developed country.
Why is the USA so full of angry people whose only form of anger management is to shoot someone?
Why are Americans so insecure in their own communities that they have to go heavily armed to buy a bottle of milk or a loaf of bread?
Why do Americans, who always claim to live in the greatest country in the world with the world’s most perfect constitution, believe they need, nay, must, have a huge arsenal to defend themselves against their own government?
Rev,
The usual answer from gun lovers about why Americans uniquely need guns in order to be able to do anything is to say, that “well, America has a different, uh, population” than those other countries, which is code for “America has black people, if we were as white as Sweden maybe gun control would be ok.”
Which is why it’s uncomfortable for them that school shooters are so often white.
The mayor of Montgomery AL signed an ordinance requiring a photo ID for people who are carrying a concealed gun. The state attorney general says the ordinance is in violation of state law, which requires nothing at all for concealed carry. You know what does require photo ID in this state? Voting. Don’t have an ID? Well, it’s fine if you want to carry a concealed gun, but don’t you dare vote!
*Both* should require an ID… it’s not weird to want an ID for voting (or for owning a gun); it is weird that there isn’t some sort of national ID that any citizen can get without difficulty.
BKiSA, that’s the problem. It has gotten harder, too. I got my driver’s license without significant problems when I was sixteen. I went to the DMV in Maine to get my address changed and get new credentials, and I was put in a situation of having to:
1. Provide my birth certificate (no problem; I have it handy)
2. Provide my marriage license (no problem; I have ti handy)
3. Provide my marriage license for my first marriage (lots of work; I had to go through Woodward County, OK, but got an email in a couple of days with it)
4. Provide my divorce decree from my first marriage (impossible. I contacted Cleveland County, Oklahoma. They said it would take a month, because they had to go through back files. Several followups later, I do not have it. I gave up.)
Why? Because they need to verify every name I have ever been known under. I could have provided them college diplomas in every one of those names. I have my Social Security card; they didn’t even ask for that, but it’s a simple way to get the information.
This is done because they want to be sure you are who you say you are. Seriously? Since none of the places I went to obtain documents asked for photo ID, and none of them asked much to verify who I was, how good are they? Meanwhile, I remain with an ID in the wrong address, and I don’t give a flying fuck. I might when it’s time to vote.
Not to mention that you have to find a way to get to the local office (not too difficult if you live in or near a city and have a car, but tough if other conditions prevail). You have to wait, sometimes for several hours. You have to pay a fee, which I think is set by the state, because it seems to vary.
I wouldn’t mind voting ID laws if they did provide some sort of legal government issued ID that was easy and free; I can usually manage the time and money, but a lot of people can’t.