A comment that still rings true

Some of my memories are worth sharing again.

One useful feature of social media is how it brings up “memories” of what you had said and done in previous years on that date. For most of the summer it told me how many Shorebird games I had attended over the years, but yesterday I brought up a comment I had made in the wake of the Las Vegas shooting back in 2017 that I think shows my consistency.

The scenario was this: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer had hardly let the bodies assume room temperature when he bloviated about assault weapons, and of course there were sycophants who agreed, so I let all of them have it:

I left this on a discussion thread on Steny Hoyer's social media but it probably could be any Democrat who wants to debate gun control while emotions are high from the Las Vegas massacre.

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I'll out myself as a so-called "right winger" (I prefer the term Constitutional, liberty-minded conservative myself) but here's a pro tip: arguing in ALL CAPS isn't getting the job done.

The reason Steny's stayed in office so long is the way his district is gerrymandered to include a large chunk of PG County. That saved his bacon early on and subsequent redistricting (as well as the growth of Charles County as a bedroom suburb of PG County) keep him there. There was once a proposal to split the Eastern Shore up and put the lower half in his district, but I'm sure he wanted no part of that. We don't think he makes a whole lot of sense.

Now, as for a time to debate gun control: the left-wing malcontents couldn't even wait for the full accounting of dead and wounded (or all the facts surrounding this incident) until they were screaming about gun control. But what if he had driven a truck into the crowd, or planted a shrapnel bomb? Would you be caterwauling for truck control or nail control?

Simply put, a gun is a tool and its usual job is protecting the bearer. Sometimes it's used for the wrong purpose, as it was this time. So in my view the discussion shouldn't be about guns, but about God. What drives a man to violate the basic commandment of "thou shalt not kill" because he has a hatred for a group? Well over 90% of people who own guns have at least the basic understanding of their power and also have the sense to know right from wrong - you know, that whole "thou shalt not kill" thing?

One rumor has it that this assailant was a member of several anti-Trump online groups. I see more vitriol about our current President (a guy I didn't vote for) than I have about the last two combined. Last time I checked, no one from that evil right wing pulled out an arsenal and tried to mow down Obama supporters in numbers like this guy did - and I'm sure it could have been done 100 or more times.

So how about we debate self-control and leave guns out of it? I can sit and stare at the whole arsenal this guy had all day, but since I would have no intention under any normal circumstance to pick it up there's no harm done. 

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This has become almost a plug and play argument that could be reused every time there’s a mass shooting. It’s not the gun’s fault - the operator is always to blame. Get to the reason why he thought it appropriate to take the lives of innocent people and you’ll often find they had a perverted (or no) sense of right and wrong.