I'm tired of fighting with gun nuts

I first started covering federal gun policy for a member of Congress in 2006. In the 12 years since, I’ve heard every possible defense of guns there is, and every last one of them falls apart under even mild scrutiny.

I used to be more respectful and nuanced in my tone and approach. I used to hold “moderate, middle ground” positions and push for incremental change and meticulously but gently list the overwhelming catalog of evidence to support gun control.

But it’s been a long 12 years and I’m tired. I’ve lived through Congressional staffers like me getting murdered while doing routine constituent outreach. I’ve lived through little kids getting slaughtered attending school. I’ve lived through movie-goers and concert-goers and church-goers and club-goers getting shot by angry, (overwhelmingly) white, (always) men with arsenals that no civilian should ever have access to.

I’m tired of the stupid, stupid, stupid fact-free talking points drafted by gun manufacturers to drive gun sales that are parroted cynically by right wing politicians and uncritically by the fearful morons who elect them. I’m tired of the assholes who rant about “partial birth abortion” (not a real thing, btw) but try to intimidate non-gun nuts who don’t always know the right gun terminology but do know they don’t want to get shot shopping at the mall.

I’m tired of the delusional wannabe heroes who think they would prevent a gun massacre when the evidence is undeniable that they’re much more likely to shoot innocent bystanders and get killed by mistake by the police than stop the bad guy... that is, if they don’t use their easy access to guns to kill their wives (a woman is fatally shot by her romantic partner every 16 hours in the United States) or themselves, if their gun isn’t stolen and used in a crime, if their children don’t get a hold of it and shoot each other by accident.

Because here’s the thing: I’ve interacted with plenty of self-proclaimed “good guys” and there are a lot of you that I don’t want within five miles of me or my kids. I sure as hell don’t want you patrolling my neighborhood school made up of black and brown kids who look like Tamir Rice—the 12-year-old kid you thought deserved to be executed by two hot-headed police officers for playing with a toy.

When a friend posted that civilian access to guns is necessary to prevent government tyranny, I told him he was being stupid. I didn’t go back to read any of the comments from his friends. What would be the point? If you genuinely believe that gun control, not a collapse in liberal democracy and civil society, is what led to the Holocaust...
if you genuinely believe that gun control will lead to genocide in the US just like it did in Australia, England, and the rest of the civilized world (oh wait, that’s not what happens when a liberal democracy enacts gun control)...
if you genuinely believe that your AR-15s are an effective deterrent against the most powerful military that has ever existed in the history of the world...
you’re too ignorant of history and too stupid to spend my time on anymore.

So I’ve deteriorated from lengthy, well-reasoned and reasonable, evidence-citing posts to memes and videos. Because nothing matters. The gun nuts are trapped in their apocalyptic fantasies and no amount of logic or respectful discussion is going to change that. And the knee-jerk partisans support the gun nuts because that’s what knee-jerk partisans do. And the rest of us die for it. And I’m so fucking tired of it.

So here’s my entire contribution to the gun debate this time around: an Ari Melber video dismantling the notion that the Second Amendment guarantees your right to an AR-15, moron.