A few depressing facts about our latest mass shooting
Apparently we can’t go more than a week in this country without a mass shooting and you see my reaction to the latest incident in the above cartoon. You might think the cartoon is about as simple as it gets and if you don’t care about getting the details right, you’d be 100 percent correct.
But…
The first step in creating the cartoon was deciding what image to draw and that meant finding out what weapon was used in the King Soopers shootings and the police said the suspect used an AR-15, which the Associated Press described as an assault weapon, but as you’re about to see that description may not be accurate.
Gun rights advocates often ridicule gun control advocates as a bunch of naïve liberals who have no idea what they’re talking about and in some instances, those gun rights advocates might have a point.
According to Wikipedia (and God only knows who wrote this entry) “assault weapons” include semi-automatic rifles which means one shot each time the trigger is pulled.
By that definition an AR-15 is an assault weapon.
But according to The Firearm Industry Trade Association website, an AR-15 is not an assault weapon, because by their definition an assault weapon is one that’s fully automatic: hold the trigger down and the weapon continues to shoot until you run out of ammunition or Bambi waves a white flag.
And according to the same website, fully automatic rifles have been “severely restricted” from civilian ownership since 1934. (They don’t fully explain what that means and after reading up on the issue I can see why; it’s fairly complicated and it seems like there are a number of loopholes so we’ll let that sleeping dog lie for now.)
Semi-related story alert
If your mind is anything like mine, first, my condolences, and second, when you read machine guns were restricted in 1934 you might wonder, “So what the hell happened in 1933?”
Good question, even if you didn’t actually ask it.
In 1933 “Machine Gun Kelly” – actual name George Kelly Barnes – kidnapped oil tycoon Charles F. Urschel and collected a $200,000 ransom which according to a semi-believable Wikipedia entry would translate into about $4 million today or whenever the anonymous Wikipedia author thought up that number.
It seems like a good idea to get machine guns out of private citizens’ hands, but let’s face it; “Semi-Automatic Gun Kelly” is a pretty underwhelming nickname.
And so is “Pop Gun Kelly” which is – once again according to Wikipedia – what the other inmates at Alcatraz started calling George after they decided he was full of crap and exaggerated his exploits which apparently he was encouraged to do by his wife, so if your spouse buys you a machine gun and encourages you to consider becoming a kidnapper, you might want to think twice and consult a divorce lawyer.
Also in 1933: there was a shootout in Kansas City at Union Station when Pretty Boy Floyd, Vernon Miller and Adam Richetti tried to free their pal Frank Nash from federal authorities who were bringing Nash back to KC so he could then be sent back to Leavenworth.
The Bad Guys had machine guns and the Good Guys didn’t and apparently everybody got fed up with that situation so machine guns were restricted which is kind of surprising because the NRA was founded in 1871, so either somebody at the NRA was asleep at the switch in 1934 or the legislation was passed before everybody lost their damn minds over the gun issue.
Boulder’s assault weapon ban
A related story from the Washington Post said that the city of Boulder tried to ban assault weapons, but since the media is incredibly imprecise about what constitutes an assault weapon it’s not entirely clear what Boulder tried to ban.
Since fully-automatic weapons are presumably already banned and semi-automatic weapons are allowed, gun rights advocates argue that “assault weapon” bans are aimed at weapons that merely look like military rifles, so the bans are stupid because they’re actually about cosmetics and you’re not going to be any less dead if you get shot by a semi-automatic Glock pistol.
The same can’t be said of large-capacity magazines – which Boulder also tried to ban – which allow a shooter to kill a couple football teams and several of their trainers without reloading.
Once again, the law is all over the place on this issue.
“Sporting” rifles
After the Firearm Industry website got done complaining about the Liberal Political Agenda and how they define assault weapons, they listed a bunch of logical reasons for owning a rifle that makes you look like you just got back from Desert Storm.
But if the only difference between a semi-automatic hunting rifle and an AR-15 is cosmetic, then by their own logic some people probably want to own AR-15s because of how they look.
If you’re a tactical-operator wannabe (and absolutely no disrespect to the people who go through training and actually are tactical operators) and you want to show up at a “Stop the Steal” rally looking like you just executed Osama Bin Laden, a Weatherby hunting rifle won’t do the trick – you need a military-looking rifle that completes your outfit.
The Firearm Industry website tried to soften the AR-15’s image by consistently describing it as a “sporting rifle” which I’m guessing an accurate poll of sporting-rifle-adjacent wildlife might find inaccurate. People find bullfighting barbaric, but at least the bull has his chance to fuck up a matador before getting stabbed in the heart.
A deer getting shot by a guy in a tree who’s wearing camo and sprayed himself with female deer urine so the male deer drops by to see who smells so good and ask if she wants to go out for a drink sometime and then gets shot for his troubles, might question the “sporting” description.
Which definitely doesn’t mean I’m against hunting because I’ve done it and think venison is pretty damn delicious. But I also think certain participants in the deer-hunting activity (the deer) might find it less than “sporting.” On the other hand: a Michael Cimino movie called the “Deer Murderer” might not have won five Academy Awards.
Anyway…
After all their logical, well-thought out reasons for owning a “sporting” rifle, the Firearm Industry web site people finished up with their most convincing argument:
“And, they are a lot of fun to shoot!”
Which is probably also true of bazookas and rocket launchers, but doesn’t mean we should have the right to own one.
Other issues of cartoon accuracy which probably nobody but me cares about
OK, so I figured out what weapon to draw, but then got worried about the label “gun violence” because some people might argue that “gun” means a pistol and not a rifle and the people who keep statistics about “gun violence” are pretty damn vague about what weapons are included in that description.
But I found at least one internet source that described an AR-15 as a “long gun” and another source that described handguns as weapons designed to be fired with one hand and a long gun as a weapon designed to be held with two hands and braced against the shoulder, so I said screw it, I’m using the “gun violence” label.
Then at the last second I wondered about the “longest-running epidemic” cutline and had to look up what epidemics might have pre-dated gun violence and cholera showed up in the U.S. in 1826 and I’m pretty sure people were shooting each other way before that and wouldn’t mind plugging the guy that gave them cholera, so I was good to go.
(See? This cartooning gig isn’t as easy as it looks.)
We must act…like we can do something about this
A variety of politicians including Joe Biden are now saying “We have to act” which is a fairly accurate description because the politicians know they don’t have the votes in the Senate to do anything meaningful, so they have to “act” like they can do something about this issue until we all get distracted by whatever issue comes along next.
The pro-gun lobby is also following their playbook and saying “now is not the time” to debate gun laws which is pretty much like the fire department showing up at a house in flames and saying “now is not the time” to discuss how to put out the fire.
Everybody is going through the motions until the rest of us lose interest.
And since we’re probably not going to do much about it – which is pretty much par for the mass shootings course – the issue that may distract us from this mass shooting may be the next mass shooting and if you don’t believe me, ask yourself how much news you’ve read today about what happened in those Atlanta massage parlors.
OK, writing this took way longer than I thought it would and it’s time for me start drawing tomorrow’s cartoon and I hope I can get it done before somebody decides to shoot a bunch more people.
I’d say my odds are 50-50.