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First off, before The Gadfly gets to what he wants to say in this post about the Las Vegas shooting massacre, The Gadfly will state for the bazillionth fucking time that he is not anti-gun (although with this latest horror, that is now a very tenuous position). No - what The Gadfly has consistently stated after every one of these mass shootings is that he is more anti-assholes (especial violent prone and mentally, emotionally and intellectually unstable ones) with guns than anything. Scroll/search through The Gadfly's archives -- should you require evidence to back up that claim.
But this Las Vegas slaughter is as about as near the straw breaking the proverbial camel's back for The Gadfly as it gets on the subject of our free-market gun society dear readers.
If you listened to some of the early videos of last night's Las Vegas shooting, what you heard on the audio of those videos was a war going on - you know the kind - the kind of war with that sadly too familiar bone-chilling sound -- that rat-a-tat-tat-tat . . . . on-and-on-and-on-and-on - seemingly endlessly. Only this war was completely one-sided in nature and the outcome leaves no doubt about that fact.
The side that "won" this war on the infamous Vegas Strip last night was made up of a single individual. This individual had a ready, locked and loaded arsenal of (latest reports put up to 20 guns, most long rifles - aka military style assault - in his possession) of extremely efficient weaponry -- the kind of weaponry that is manufactured with the principal purpose to kill and maim as many human being targets with the least amount of trigger pulls and in the greatest numbers possible. They quite simply are weapons of war. On the other side of this war you had tens of thousands of humans, out for a night in a glitzy, glamorous tourist hot spot, Las Vegas, just breezily enjoying life, soaking in their favorite music at an outdoor concert venue, dancing and laughing and enjoying time with friends and family and other humans.
And then the war started. And the lives of those people who were just living their lives care free were changed forever. Many of those lives were snuffed out in an instant - the instant that a randomly sprayed bullet from one of the other side's war machines blasted through someone's brain or tore a hole the size of a softball through someone else's chest or back.
Sigh . . . .
This IS NOT NORMAL folks. This country has had 273 mass shootings this year. Just this fucking year!! No other modern democracy on the face of the planet comes close to the gun carnage this country sees on almost a daily basis. The Gadfly will repeat his self -- This IS NOT NORMAL.
And for you NRA toadies and you gun fetish freaks who are trying to convince us all that this is normal and that it is simply the price that we all must be willing to pay, apparently at any random moment in time, for your stupid goddamn tree of liberty to be watered --- well The Gadfly is going to look every one of you in the eyeball and tell you straight up -- FUCK YOU! Fuck your warped views of the 2nd amendment, fuck your glib dismissal of everyone else's right to live in a society where we aren't incessantly terrorized by a bunch of steroid, caffeine and nicotine hyped up, violence worshiping nut jobs who fancy themselves the modern day equivalent of the Minutemen holding off the British army at Lexington & Concord.
By the way -- do you know how many Americans were killed in that seminal Revolutionary war battle? A grand total of 49. That's right. The British Army was able to kill only 49 Americans and injured another 39 in a military confrontation with a ragged colonial army that set the stage for America's breakaway independence from Great Britain. Get that? A whole fucking army was only able to kill 49 Americans in a day long, military battle on multiple fronts! In Las Vegas, Nevada last night, one guy, in the span of about 5 minutes, from the comfort of a luxury hotel suite, is able to kill almost 60 people and injure more than 500. Let that juxtaposition sink in for a minute or two.
This IS NOT NORMAL.
So that The Gadfly avoids mincing words any further here -- anyone who is telling you that this perpetual cycle of firearms inflicted human wreckage is normal -- and that it is something that you just need to learn to accept as being a red, white & blue byproduct of your exceptional American heritage -- well that individual is someone that is afflicted with a very seriously fucked up mind and an even more seriously fucked up soul. And if you are a friend or a family member of The Gadfly and you are of that view, please don't ever share that viewpoint in direct conversation with The Gadfly, because The Gadfly will tell you quite unmistakably that you have a fucked up mind and a fucked up soul - he'll tell you that right to your face - even at the expense of irreparable harm to the personal relationship. This is a non-negotiable issue with The Gadfly - period.
But The Gadfly is also, if anything, a realist. Hell -- if the horrific and gruesomely bloody deaths of a 20 toddlers and 6 teachers in an elementary school room wasn't enough to motivate this country to do some serious soul searching and atone for it's societal negligence, then what's 12 dead in a movie theater, or 24 dead in a restaurant, or 32 dead in a college, or 49 dead in a nightclub -- or even 59 dead at a music concert going to do? As long as it isn't the dearly loved one of Wayne LaPierre, or some NRA bought politician, or some firearms manufacturer CEO lying in a bullet-riddled, blood-soaked heap at one of these massacres right? Out of sight, out of mind . . .
Unfortunately -- that's exactly where The Gadfly sees this nation's collective mental health state right now on this subject -- out of our fucking minds. Out of our minds to allow a small, albeit loudmouth political organization like the NRA to tell all the rest of us, a clear majority incidentally, that we just need to accept their vision of a nightmare society where our communities have become hostages to fear from the prospect that some disgruntled or mentally disturbed psychopath, suddenly and without warning, decides he's going to pick that day, place and time to expertly exercise his 2nd amendment "right" to rid his immediate surroundings from humans that displease or annoy him.
It is long past time for we the people to demand that something tangible and lasting be done about this assault weapons insanity from our "leaders." For if we continue with the apathy and the neglect and let's face it -- cowardice -- to allow the continued proliferation of these weapons of mass destruction in our society, then who is to say that the next public massacre, maybe it will be 80 dead, or 100 dead, is not our society reaping what we've sown, or in layman's terms - deserving of it?
And if you're one of these fence-sitters who just can't seem to take a side in this debate and you feel a bit squeamish about listening to the harangue of a dirty old liberal hippie like The Gadfly, then how about listening to what a highly decorated, United States Army General has to say on the subject:
The choice as to what kind of society your kids and grandkids grow up in dear readers is entirely your own at this point. Get involved and make your voices heard -- and if should you consciously choose not to -- the next time that one of these massacres happens, just shut up and go about your business as usual - your opinion would pretty much be worth dirt at that point.
----TFG
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