How Many TVs Did You Smash in Your House Last Month?

Come on, admit it: If you didn’t actually throw something at your TV in the last couple of weeks, you wanted to, didn’t you? I certainly did. The feeling started right around mid-February after the latest mass school shooting when bobblehead, pro-gun-voting Florida Governor Rick Scott came out to offer his “thoughts and prayers” for the 17 victims in Parkland, Florida. I only own one TV so I tweeted instead:

Guns, Thoughts and Prayers

The feeling continued with the sight of sweaty-faced, little Florida senator, Marco Rubio facing off hundreds of Parkland students at a town hall meeting, and stating he was still going to take money from the NRA.  Then, we were treated to the sight of the most ignorant White House occupant ever holding his notes on what to say so he would sound like a human being.

That was the day he suggested that America’s teachers should go to work armed and at the ready. This, in order to better protect their students from maniacs who breeze into a gun shop, buy AR-15 assault rifles that come equipped with super-fast reloading clips of 30-rounds of ammunition, and then walk into schools to snuff out innocent young lives.

 

Violent thoughts

I have never felt violently inclined enough towards politicians so as to want to throw my smartphone at my smart TV. Most of the time, what they decide — or rather what they don’t decide (because, you know, congressional paralysis and  inaction) — rolls off my back. I also don’t like to write or tweet about politics because there are hundreds of journalists on dozens of reputable mainstream news publications who do the job much better than I can. But there are times, as I say on my Welcome Page,  when the author in me has to take a back seat, and the journalist/mother/wife/citizen sits up and takes notice.

Notably that’s happened here and here, and it’s been about this country’s incomprehensible gun culture, and my total bewilderment that not one single teeny-tiny law for gun control has even stood a chance of passing. Not after Sandy Hook (20 little first graders gunned down in cold blood); not after Las Vegas ( 58 country music fans slaughtered and 850 injured at a concert;) and not even in the interests of self-preservation after the attack on U.S. congressmen at a baseball practice last summer.

NRA Bullshit

That’s because of the relentless bullshit peddled by the National Rifle Association and its spokespeople like Wayne LaPierre and Dana (“media loves mass shootings because crying white mothers are ratings gold”) Loesch whose solution always is to call for more citizens to be armed with more guns — which is, of course, what the imbecile-in-chief was listening to when he suggested teachers ought to be armed.

The brilliant Lawrence O’Donnell of MSNBC’s The Last Word unpacked that idea step by step to produce a very vivid image of teachers’ shoot-outs in school corridors, shooting at each other, and mowing down more students as, armed with their little handguns (which will be concealed on their persons during classes) they confront the next mentally ill person armed with a super-fast reloading assault rifle.

Progress Maybe???

This past week, however, it seemed like progress was being made. The clown in the White House veered away from his initial pronouncements about loving the NRA who are “very, very great people,” and stunned Republicans by pontificating at a meeting that guns should be taken away from people before they are adjudicated mentally ill by courts because going to court takes time. Does he ever listen to what comes out of his puckered little mouth? Does he remember from one day, or one hour to the next what he suggested and why he suggested it? Because then, of course, he veered right back to loving the NRA after having dinner with two of its representatives that evening.

In any event, it didn’t matter what unconstitutional remedies he was proposing, or changing his mind about because some fearless corporations took matters into their own hands after the “children” showed them the way. Parkland students confronted legislators like sweaty, little Marco at a CNN town hall meeting in Sunrise, Fl. They came to the White House to confront Trump; they set a date for the Million Kids March on Washington. Major businesses like Dick’s Sporting Goods and Walmart then followed suit by announcing they would not sell assault-style rifles. Other major corporations like United and Delta airlines, and Avis, Budget, Hertz and Enterprise car rental agencies stated they were rescinding discounts for NRA members. The First National Bank of Ohio said it was not renewing its contract for a branded NRA Visa card.

Get Rid of All Gun-Happy Lawmakers

Personally, I will be going to the polling booth in New York this year specifically to vote out my current congressman, Lee Zeldin (R.) He has an “A” rating from the NRA for his pro-guns voting record. Most recently, he co-sponsored a bill that provides for residents from states where they can carry concealed handguns for which they have a permit to carry them into all other states that allow concealed carry weapons.

New York state is a concealed carry state, but it does not allow residents from other states to bring concealed carry weapons into New York state, and right now even a state- issued New York pistol license is not valid in New York City. New York, in fact, has some of the toughest gun laws in the country — but Zeldin wants to change that. Probably to make it more like Florida?

That’s where Governor Rick Scott wants to run for the U.S. Senate with his “A+” NRA rating for voting for all the pro-gun bills in his state. He’ll have the support of Florida senator Rubio, who also has an “A+” rating from the NRA as well as more than $3million dollars in donations from the organization.

 

Florida: The New Wild West?

How can they be surprised by the slaughters occurring in their state? 17 students and teachers in Parkland last month; 49 at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in June 2016, and five gunned down at Fort Lauderdale airport last year?

I know what it’s like to live in a concealed carry state with lax gun laws.  I discovered it means that occasionally drunken or rabble rousing gun enthusiasts get carried away and grab their readily-handy guns and shoot into the air by way of marking some special occasion or holiday.

This is the speculation as to how a bullet (pictured) tore through my air conditioning condenser unit causing the air conditioning to fail on New Year’s Day. The condenser unit was located on the roof of our 9-story condo building. Or, some say, it could have happened when a nearby house caught fire and the arsenal inside the house exploded as a result of the heat. Either way, to add insult to injury, my warranty did not cover replacement of a condenser unit damaged by gunfire. (Note: the bullet was brought to me in the chewing gum wrapper because the a/c technician did not want his fingerprints on it!)

Toxic Trio

It was a good story to tell for the couple of weeks between New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day when the monumental loss of life at Parkland eclipsed almost any other kind of personal problem. Speaking for myself, I would have loved to see the toxic trio (Trump, Rubio and Scott) gathered in one setting with their immediate families: Trump’s five children, Rubio’s four children and Scott’s two daughters and six grandkids. That’s 17 immediate family members. Then, I would have liked that toxic trio to ponder the fact that the gunman in Parkland wiped out the equivalent total of their three immediate families.

That might have given them pause for thought. Then again, mental midgets never pause to actually think.

 

 

 

2 thoughts on “How Many TVs Did You Smash in Your House Last Month?”

  1. As sad as it is to say, I gave up on any real gun control in our neighbours to the South. If Sandy Hook couldn’t bring about change, nothing ever will 🙁

  2. I think many, many people agree with you, Eldon — especially after last Saturday when the Florida Senate failed to pass a bill which would have banned assault-style weapons in the state.
    This failure to pass even the narrowest of gun control measures is appalling given the mass school shooting at Parkland is still so fresh in the minds of all Floridians. We can only hope that the kids will start voting out all the politicians who don’t show an iota of common sense about this issue.

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