Sunday, May 20, 2018

Do Something(TM) vs. #DoSomething vs F@#$ing Doing Something

There's political motivation behind a lot of the debate and strategy … but do some solutions really need to be political or have an agenda?

-Do Something(TM): This is a political tactic, and a Twins of Liberty brainchild that acknowledges the guns rights community has not been proactive and been caught off-guard by the anti-rights movement. The idea is that gun control measures are emotionally driven by sensationalism in liberal media that's backed by billionaire Bloomberg, and people act as sheep by being coaxed into temporarily wanting this restriction placed in their lives. One of their motivators is the idea that they're the only ones offering a solution to an ongoing problem... which is kind of true, because all the guns rights community has offered is angry dissent, rather than their own ideas. Do Something(TM)'s premise is to offer legitimate alternatives in order to expand discussion beyond gun control measures. Turning it into a discussion counters the passionate wave the gun control movement relies on, and acts as a delay tactic for measures that are intended to strip us of our rights. It's a win-win approach that prevents stupid laws AND supports credible solutions.

-#DoSomething: An agenda, not a movement. This is not about actual solutions, but taking advantage of an opportunity granted by the death of children to pursue a gun ban. They don't care about actually protecting schools and decreasing violence. A real movement would be proposing a hundred valid solutions, yet they're only pursing one flawed idea. In fact, here's a good example of them ridiculing a perfectly legitimate security practice because it doesn't fit the narrative they're trying to produce - Texas official blames school shooting on too many exits and entrances. They took the Lt. Governor of Texas out of context, and made him sound like a complete fool. Controlled access points into buildings that can be monitored and have random bag searches is a well established practice in nearly every major office or government building. The idea of armed security or teachers is also treated as a joke, as if somehow active self-defense is more ridiculous than lying in a fetal position kissing your ass goodbye when faced with a threat. The fact they'll try to discredit valid solutions is proof of what they really care about.

One of the things that has me beating my head into the wall is “How do they get away with blocking actual solutions, yet still rally people under a #DoSomething banner?” The fact is, the typical liberal is not the intellectual that they pretend to be. They're very shallow and concerned about an image, which has to do with the fact that its majority is a younger demographic (I was even one of them before shifting towards libertarian ideology as I matured). They have excellent marketing that sells an image of being the good guys... being the ones with the only solution, being the ones that care, and holding a moral high ground. Image trumps actual logic and reason.

-F@#$ing Doing Something: This is one of my frustrations... We have easy ways to fix this. We could stop sensationalizing these actions in order to prevent copy cats that want to be immortalized. We could put School Resource Officers in every school, or train teachers that are willing to be armed if funding is an issue. But what about solutions that fall completely within the control of our own households?

I can't ignore the fact that irresponsible gun owners contribute to the problem. We're all quick to criticize someone in a picture that isn't practicing trigger discipline, or muzzling their friends in a video... but we don't say anything to those folks in our lives who we know keep a loaded gun in their closet that's accessible to a child. I don't care how well trained you THINK your children are, they shouldn't be anywhere near a gun without direct supervision. It's negligence to not lock up your firearms. Does punching in a digital combination add a few seconds to your reaction time for home defense? Sure. But is it logical to introduce a new threat in order to counter another? The added reaction time is worth the elimination of this realistic consequence. It's a fact accidents and many mass shootings could have been prevented with parents using a gun safe that their children don't have access to. F@#$ing do something to ensure it's not your child shooting up a school.

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