Gun Violence Reaching Small-Town (NRA-Voting) America - Too Late to Turn Back Now
For years, crazed killers with assault rifles shooting up random places to terrorize people was something that happened only in major cities or their suburbs.
Small-town, Red State voters shook their heads and tsk-tsked about the carnage in places like Orlando, Aurora, Tucson, and particularly in their favorite target, Chicago. “Big cities are open sewers. What do you expect from them godless (read: black/Mexican/gay) heathens?” And then they went out and voted for politicians that obstructed in every way possible any sane restriction on batshit crazy people getting their hands on combat-grade weaponry.
Flash-forward to the last couple of weeks: rural Texas. Rural California.
This is the world that the GOP and the NRA are forcing our children to grow up in:
At a small market at the entrance to the subdivision, one man said Tuesday that his cousin’s daughter was afraid to leave the house after the gunman shot into their car.
“Her daughter, she didn’t even want to get out of the house for now. She just wants to stay home. Wants nothing with the outside,” said the man, who would not give his name
Two other men said children in their family — pupils at the school ages 6 to 9 — had similar reactions.
“All of our nephews, they say they want to get out of this school. But I tell them, where do you want to go? Do you want to go to Vegas? Or to Texas?” the man said.
The sad fact is that there is no longer an “away” to go to where you can be safe of the nightmare that the GOP and the NRA have forced us into. Assault rifles have been marketed to marginalized losers as the way to feel better about themselves; as magical totemic objects that will transform their lives, make them into heroes, “Good Guys With Guns.”
Every single mass shooter bought his assault rifles thinking they were a Good Guy who now had the powerful magical tool that would transform his world. And then came the sad weeks and months afterwards, when, despite buying said gun, the world did not change, did not suddenly open up to them and bow down and deliver God’s bounty.
And in their disappointment and rage, the angry, stupid men who bought assault rifles then began to follow a different narrative.
The sad truth is that big cities were just the canaries in this endless, nightmarish coal mine. Assault rifle violence hit here first. We screamed at the top of our lungs to stop the flood of assault rifles into the hands of crazy people. And rural Americans just shrugged and said “tough shit.”
It’s their turn now in the barrel. As a practical matter, it is way, WAY too late to get the guns out of the hands of all the batshit crazy GOP voters who have snarfed them up - particularly in the last 8 years, under Obama, when the “Buy an assault rifle to protect yourself from the Scary Negro In The White House” dogwhistle marketing campaigns really got traction.
They voted for this. This is what they wanted.