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photo by Sheri Dixon

Sunday, February 18, 2018

Where Did These Kids Come From?

In the wake of the latest school shooting...there will be another one next week because now, in the US, that's how we roll...people (specifically conservative gun enthusiasts) are saying the FBI is at fault for a young man being able to walk into a school and shoot up students and teachers.

I know plenty of gun nuts who regularly spew hatred of Muslims and gays and black people and politicians and immigrants and liberals and even say...shoot at targets of actual people *cough* Obama *cough* and have upwards of 20 guns and literal tons of ammo, while believing that their puny arsenal can take on the US Army and ANY MINUTE NOW, ISIS will drop from the trees in rural bum-fuck East Texas and kick in their doors to rape their dogs and take their wimmen.

Guess that's enough to arrest someone now, right, gun nuts?

Because if you wanna talk "slippery slope", detaining and arresting someone because they "might" do something, or because they "said" they're "thinking" about doing something is a good way to start that slippery slope.

Do kids who shoot up schools send out about a million warning signs? Damn skippy they do.

Know who sees those first and every single subsequent signs?

You do. You do. You do. You do.

Because they're never *ever* the kids of liberal gun-hating parents. Ever.

They're *your* goddamn kids. Yours.

And you know that they're twitchy and have anger issues and should not be armed. You've known it since they started walking and talking. Lord knows you've tried your best to beat it out of them; to make them fine upstanding citizens. You've done all you know how. You tell them every single day not to be such an asshole or they'll get *another* ass-whoopin'.

You have guns. Lots of them. You probably even gave that kid his first gun- as a sign that you believe he's grown up and responsible and expecting him to fill those worthy shoes.

Your guns are not locked up. Who locks up guns? How are you supposed to drop that gang-banger who leaps thru an open window at 1am to steal your big screen TV and vintage collection of beef jerky?

And now another one of *your* kids has killed again. Pretty much every day school is in session in the US, there is an incident involving a gun. They don't all end in death, but guns are there.

Arm the teachers! That'll fix it. Expect those teachers to point a gun at your child and shoot him in the head if needed!

Some brave Texas schools have already done it and post signs around the perimeter- "This school has armed teachers who will protect our children using whatever force necessary". Wow. What a brave thing! So smart. How high is that school's liability insurance, now? Are they taking that money away from lunches, or art classes, or raising school taxes for everyone in the district? I mean...you can't take away from the football program. There are limits.

But right now...this minute...this time...

You're blaming the FBI for "dropping the ball". You're blaming the police and the school for "dropping the ball".

Those entities of creeping government over-reach that you rail about every day- that they'd "better not come sniffing around expecting to take *my guns* by god or I'll go down shooting their sorry asses! Cold, dead hands, baby!"

You made these little monsters who are shooting up our schools.

They've watched you and listen to you and just like kids everywhere, they emulate and admire...you.

"What's happened in the last 30 years that our society has come to this? Kids every day shooting up their fellow students and teachers in school, for fuck's sake? Must be the video games, the Ritalin, the liberal "everyone gets an award" upbringing, the lack of GOD in schools...it's a damn shame."

What happened?

30 years of shifting the role of guns as hunting tools into guns as "home protection" tools happened. That gun in the back window of every pickup in a rural high school 30 years ago was used to shoot squirrels. The AR-15(s) in your home get used for target practice...aiming at human-shaped targets.

30 years of stockpiling weapons and ammo because "the liberals are going to ban them all!"

30 years of a deep and growing distrust of the American government like it's some amorphous entity instead of a group of people *we* vote into office and can just as easily vote out.

30 years of the middle class losing ground while the tippy top get richer and richer. It sucks and it's not fair and it makes for a desperate exhausting and angry existence where the only thing you have control over anymore is how many goddamn guns you have and you feel you have done *one* thing in a manly manner- you've protected your family...if you can keep the goddamn liberals away.

30 years of dying of preventable things because health care in this nation is so expensive...but that's how life is, right? It's not fair. Don't talk to us about socialistic commie universal health care. We die free!

30 years of (for the first time in America's history) the younger generation knowing they will make less money and die younger than the previous one. That it's going to be hard or impossible to go to college after high school so hard or impossible to make enough to live on working one job. So 30 years of telling yourselves that college ain't that important anyway- it's a liberal cesspool.

Who made the school shooters? You did.

Don't get me wrong. Liberals fuck up just as badly as parents. Kids of "liberals" have mental illness, too. The only difference? Ready access to firearms.

They do kill themselves at a horrifying rate- the capitalist patriarchy is a fucking meat grinder and we're tits deep in it. They take pills. They hang themselves. They wrap their cars around trees.

But it's your kids who reach a breaking point that you watch every single day as it builds and builds and in between punishing them for being assholes, you think, "Sure he's pissed off. I'm pissed off, too. He's young and hot-headed. He'll grow out of it."

And one day your kid grabs an AR-15 out of the closet and a few handguns out of the drawer, and they take them to school...