Last night, while working out at the gym, I watched Sean Hannity and Newt Gingrich mock Barack Obama for his inability to see the biggest threat to American safety.
It’s not climate change, they insisted. It’s ISIS, and the looming, ongoing nightmare that is fundamentalist Islamic terror. That, they agreed, is why we all should be nervous, and what our energies need to be focused upon. Climate change? Meh. Not a big deal.
Then the commercial came, someone tried to sell me a car, and that was that.
•
This morning, in case you have yet to hear, up to 20 people were shot at a county services office in San Bernardino, California—not all that far from where we live. The details are sketchy, but it’s believed a couple of the shooters are on the run. The suspects, a spokesperson said, are heavily armed and were possibly wearing body armor.
Yup.
This is a rant: I’m tired of hearing about ISIS, and refugees, and protecting our boarders. I want to hear about guns. And not how we need more of them; how, if someone in that office was armed, this might have not happened. Nope, nope, nope. I want to hear a plan—a legitimate plan—for making our nation safer. Maybe it means longer waiting periods, maybe it means more law enforcement, maybe it means a nation filled with metal detectors. Whatever—I don’t care. But I want solutions. Real solutions. Oh, and to hell with the Second Amendment. Wait, let me re-state: To hell with the modern far-right interpretation of the Second Amendment. Do you really think Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson aspired to a nation where everyone carries the high-caliber weaponry of their choosing? Do you really think that’s the answer? More guns? Imagine the scene. You’re in a restaurant. Someone thinks there’s a robbery going on. He pulls out his gun. Then someone else thinks that guy’s the gunman, and he pulls out his gun. They start shooting, and others pull out their guns. How about fights at Little League games; disputes at cash registers; a suspected robber who’s actually your uncle using the key beneath the flower pot.
Guns. Guns. Guns.
This is not safety. It’s insanity.
But you know what else is insanity? Believing ISIS to be our biggest threat, when we have weekly mass shootings. That’s no exaggeration—every week, on average, we now have mass shootings in America. These are our terrorism. Imagine if this San Bernardino tragedy were carried out by an Islamic fundamentalist? The response would be a bunkering down; a call for higher security; renewed indictments of Muslims. But if—as will likely be the case—this was carried out by a bunch of good ol’ asshole American shooters, we’ll react thusly …
A. Statements of sympathy and prayer for the victims.
B. Repeated pleas not to politicize the moment.
C. Nothing gets done.
ISIS? Islamic fundamentalism? Horrible, awful, need to be eradicated. No doubt.
This guy, however, is our Osama. We just don’t seem realize it …
