Shall Not Be Questioned

Tam notes that a New York mother who drowned her kids when she drove her minivan into the Hudson won’t be attracting any activists looking to ban minivans, boat ramps or motherhood. This is a pretty serious question our opponents should ask themselves. Obviously this is a tragedy, but why isn’t anyone demanding the government do something, for the children. Because doing nothing isn’t an answer.

In this case, we universally accept the mother snapped, and nothing much else is to blame. At most people might murmur a bit about more funding for counseling and women’s service. We don’t blame access to cars, or boat ramps. Why? Because none of these objects carry the same spiritual power as the gun. To the extent the other side likes to suggest the gun is our god, if that is true, it is most certainly their devil. I stand by my assertion that the other side is acting in an elaborate passion play. Otherwise, why is the car not to blame? Or the boat ramp?

Don’t forget to check out some of the commentary at CSGV’s Facebook page. You have Andrew Goddard, who’s Colin’s dad saying “they will all come back as cockroaches – if they are lucky.” Andy Pelosi thanks Joan for the work she does in the “face of cowards.” Another person suggests “never give into a bully.” I think it’s time to cut out the niceties for the moment, and have a little frank discussion, so that both sides may better understand each other.

I am not unsympathetic to your grief. I’ve lost people close to me, some agonizingly over time and others suddenly. I can relate to the pain of loss, and learning how to cope and continue with life. I truly am sorry for what you have gone through, and may be still going through. If I had a time machine at my disposal, I’d go back and undo everything so it never happened. I have no wish to see you continuously hurting.

But you folks have a lot of nerve calling other people cowards and bullies. Let me explain to you why you elicit such “underhanded hate and misguided personal attacks” from some of the people on my side. It’s important for your side to understand. We want nothing more than to stay out of your business, leave you alone, let you heal and get on with your lives. By the same token, we expect the same courtesy in return. That is the fundamental violation you are committing in our eyes, and it’s a serious one.

There is nothing more personal, when it comes to ones own business, than his or her personal security measures. That is not a topic I take kindly to other people poking their noses into, or demanding politicians do the same. This is going to sound cold, but whatever happened in your lives is your tragedy, and not mine. I am not responsible for it. So when you stick your noses in our very personal business, then demand we tolerate that because of your special status as “victims,” don’t then then act surprised and indignant when some of us rhetorically punch you in it. We would all gladly leave you alone. But it seems that your happiness and sense of well being involves trying to take away ours. Are we just supposed to roll over quietly in that case?

At this point, I think Paul Helmke probably wishes it were a beer summit, because at least then he could have gotten a free beer out of it, and maybe met the President. We initially were quite skeptical of Brady claims of success from the summit. With this report in the Washington Post, that skepticism would seem to have been warranted:

But the official the advocates wanted to hear from most stayed mostly quiet.

The silence of Steve Croley, the White House’s point man on gun regulation policy, echoes the decision by Democrats to remain mute on guns as a national issue, even in the wake of the Tucson rampage.

They later go on to say:

One area in which Croley has shown less interest, according to several people who have spoken with him about the issue, is restricting the large-volume ammunition magazines that allowed the Tucson shooter to keep firing. When Paul Helmke, director of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, broached the subject during the March 15 gathering with Croley, officials promptly adjourned the meeting.

That adds more evidence that the “assault clip” effort is just the latest ridiculousness from the other side. Though I strongly believe they have given up on passing legislation at this point, and are focusing almost exclusively on testing issues based on their ability to attract media attention, followers, and most importantly donations. Read the whole Washington Post article. This makes me seriously question why Brady is even keeping around a 501(c)(4). They are in hearts and minds territory at this point, and that’s not anything you need a (c)(4) non-profit to accomplish.

CSGV is blasting some bloggers, including Joe Huffman, for, as best as I can summarize being mean to Joan Peterson. They particularly seemed incensed by Link P’s assertion:

“Peterson is no survivor of gun violence.  Her sister was murdered by her criminal brother in law. She wasn’t even there.

This isn’t something I would have ever said to Joan, because I think her grief is genuine and real, and I wouldn’t want to appear to be diminishing it or trivializing it. But I’m also not sure why Link’s statement is fundamentally wrong as a matter of how we generally think about these things.

Those who have been reading for a while know my mother died of breast cancer when I was 20 years old. She was diagnosed in my early teens and spent about 8 years fighting a losing battle against the disease. So I not only know what it’s like to lose a loved one, I know what it’s like to watch them slowly die and deteriorate over a period of years.

But yet the title of this post would make you think I had cancer, had beat cancer, or had otherwise somehow been directly victimized by it. By the same token, if I had said I was a suicide victim, it might make you wonder if I had tried it, or was giving a new definition to the term “ghost writing.” Usually when we speak in the context of victimhood, we assume a direct association with the person who was victimized. If your sister was raped, you’d say your sister was a victim of rape. You wouldn’t say you were a victim of rape. People would naturally assume that meant you yourself were raped.

There’s a lot of religion in this issue, on both sides. I don’t mean literal religion, but figurative, in the sense that the same kind of devotions, faiths, heresies, dogmas and scriptures are at work at a very fundamental level. But our religion is the role firearms play within the American cultural and political framework. It is heresy to the other side, because their religion centers around victimhood. Victimhood, to us, is heresy. Or at least the type of victimhood their religion centers around is. In short, Link was questioning Joan’s religion, and while that’s never polite, I can’t be so quick to say it’s incorrect. If it is, then I’m a cancer victim.