Who--Or What--Is To Blame?

Be forewarned:  Part of today's post will be a continuation of yesterday's rant, in which I lamented the terror and seeming inevitability of the mass shootings in a Texas school and Buffalo supermarket.

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that politicians and media pundits are blaming everything but guns.  I'm not talking about the "decay of moral values" or other talking points of the political and religious right.  Instead, I'm talking about flat-out lies spread by folks whose careers and reputations never could withstand the truth.

Paul Gosar, the Republican Congressional Representative from Arizona, is an example of who I mean. I must say, he has managed to concoct a non-reality not even the strongest drugs could induce and twist logic and reason in ways a pretzel-maker would envy.

To wit:  He tweeted that the shooter--18-year-old Salvador Ramos, born and raised in Texas--was a "transsexual leftist illegal alien."  Gosar's source for that bit of intelligence?  A social network called 4Chan, to which folks of his ilk are drawn like flies to, well, the stuff flies are drawn to.  That's bad enough, but I would really like to know where he got his thinking skills.  He followed up his out-and-out falsehood with this pearl of wisdom:  "Sandy Hook proved the need to enhance K-12 security."  OK. That's not too debatable. But then he made a leap into the (il)logical abyss:  "Congress armed Ukraine instead."

Now, as much as I sympathise with the people of Ukraine, I wonder about Congressional members' motives in voting to send even more weapons than President Biden demanded.  But talk about a false equivalency!  I mean, how can he link sending help to Ukraine with school safety, or a school shooting that happened nearly a decade ago?

Compounding the problem is that other voices in the media will amplify such nonsense--or other verbal bilge-- in the same way he was a loudspeaker for Trump's beloved "low-information voters."  Fox News, in following with a hallowed tradition, shifted the blame to parents.  

I have to hand it to the folks at Faux, I mean Fox:  They accomplished something I didn't think possible.  The excerable (even by their standards) Laura Ingraham interviewed someone even more vile than herself:  Andrew Pollack.  That I can unfavorably compare a man who lost his daughter in the Parkland shooting to a Fox host is really saying something. He, who has previously argued "guns didn't kill my daughter, Democratic principles did," in reference to the Texas shooting, declared, "It's the parents."

How he came to that conclusion took a turn of logic that rivals what brought Gosar to his blaming the shooting on helping Ukraine.  "It's your responsibility where you're sending your children to school," he explained.  "You need to check where your kids go to school."  He suggested that parents should take their kids "out of public school" and put them in "a private school, because a lot of these private schools, they take security way more serious."

Where to begin with that assessment?  Well, for one thing, private schools are not an option for most families. Most kids go to whatever public school is zoned for wherever they live and they (or, more precisely, their parents) have little or no choice in the matter.  Also, even if private school is an option, it might not meet some kids' needs.  And, finally, what does he mean by "security?"  Metal detectors?  Armed teachers?

Oh, and there are the usual diatribes about education and mental health treatment.  I would agree:  If someone were to ask me for an example of an oxymoron, I might say, "American mental health care system."  But that fixing that won't stop mass gun violence all by itself any more than better school security or any other action could.

Here's what I wonder: How the fuck did someone who couldn't even drink beer legally get his hands on a military-grade assault weapon?  Would Ingraham ask such a question?  Could--or would--Pollack or Gosar answer it?

So why am I taking up another post on a cycling blog with a discussion of a school shooting and its aftermath?  Well, what Gosar and his ilk do in these situation--blame everything but guns--reminds me of the ways law enforcement and some members of the public react, too often, when a driver maims or kills a cyclist.  Never mind that he or she was driving at double the speed limit, was distracted by a mobile device or impaired by drugs, alcohol or some other substance--or was simply driving agressively or carelessly.  The cyclist, especially if he or she is killed, is blamed.