1/30/2018

Trophy Tuesday: Ammosexuals

As I start this draft, we are 24 days into the new year. So far there have been 11 school shootings.

It's America's thing.

Really. 

I discovered this in the bathroom at Hugmonkey's school last week. It's a PreK-3 school. I mean, on one level, this is great. It's very clear on what to do. But on another level, like the fact that it has to exist. . .



I will never forget what it felt like to walk into that school the day after Sandy Hook. Ironflower and Lovebug had their winter concert and suddenly parents had to sign in and there were police officers on hand and you had to wear a red sticker and I think I cried during the whole concert.

The whole culture of the school changed overnight, it seemed. And I was so grateful that my second grader and my first grader and my preschooler were safe and that the school was doing everything in its power to keep them safe.

I was also furious.

I remain furious.

I also remain grateful, because of course I'm grateful every day that I get to be with my kids. But gratitude is not getting a trophy today. 



I first saw the term "ammosexual" on Twitter. Twitter is also where I 'met' my first ammosexuals.

I've known gun owners all my life. I won't say I've been around guns all my life, because all the gun owners I knew kept that shit locked up. My mother talked fondly of her stepfather hunting to supplement their grocery budget; Hot Guy talks fondly about growing up doing the same. Other family had their guns for protection; some had them for both. Hell, when my cousins lived in Alaska they brought guns on hikes. Because of bears.

Most gun owners are not ammosexuals. Most gun owners would like universal background checks, for example. Most gun owners do not belong to the NRA, which has gone from a force for education to a force for paranoia. Most gun owners, like most citizens, would like to know the most effective ways to reduce mass shootings and gun suicides.

Ammosexuals will literally spend hours trying to convince you that suicides and mass shootings cannot be reduced and so the CDC shouldn't study gun violence.  that any US citizen should be able to buy as many guns as he or she wants, regardless of domestic violence restraining orders or mental health issues. Some ammosexuals will try to convince you that Sandy Hook and Las Vegas were fake or orchestrated by the "Deep State" as an excuse for the government to seize all the guns.

Other ammosexuals have decided that Sandy Hook and Las Vegas and every other mass shooting are the price we all must pay so that they can always buy as many guns as they want. Ammosexuals are convinced that their right to bear arms must be unlimited, despite Scalia's assertion otherwise.

Ammosexuals' entire identities are so tied up in gun ownership that even the idea that some people don't want guns around them at the movies or the grocery store is threatening. This would be like me being threatened by the Amish, attached as I am to modern conveniences like cable TV and the internet. Or by those homesteader people who live off the grid (some of whom are, in fact, ammosexuals).

Except that I'm not.

And if the CDC wants to study how social media contributes to suicide rates? I support that. I hope they're doing that, actually.

What kind of asshole doesn't want to figure out the best way to reduce suicides? Or mass shootings? Or domestic violence?

Oh, wait. We know about domestic violence. The presence of a gun increases the risk of homicide by 500%.

I've had no less than 4 Twitter ammosexuals respond to that statistic with, "They should have left." As if it's that easy. As if that's not what triggers more homicidal violence.

Ammosexuals love guns more than they love people.

Fuck you, ammosexuals. Fuck you, Russian backed lobbying arm of the ammosexuals, aka the NRA. And fuck you politicians who listen to the NRA over American voters.







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