Less is Nothing

I came into the 2016 campaign thinking of Ben Carson as one of the smart guys in the Republican field.  He made a living operating on brains, which I'm given to believe is somewhat challenging.  I never expected him to know things about public policy or foreign policy, having never worked in government, but I thought he'd be good at common sense things and thinking on his feet.  Don't surgeons have to literally think on their feet?  Shouldn't quick decisiveness be a strength for a brain surgeon?  I feel like if something went wrong during my brain surgery, Dr. Ben would decide what to do about it halfway through my autopsy.  He's like a glacier with glasses.  But, even though it seems like Ben really REALLY thinks before he speaks, he still says things that make no sense to anyone.

In case you missed it, Ben decided he needed to go on TV and comment on the latest episode of America's longest running reality show "Lots of People Get Shot for No Particular Reason".  Like Survivor, it was never really a good show, but we have no intention of cancelling it.  Anyway, Ben figures that if he were ever confronted with a gunman, he would just rally everyone in the room to attack the gunman and stop him.  As far as I can tell, here's how Ben's fantasy plays out:

Scene: Dr. Ben is teaching a class about brains or whatever when suddenly a guy in a black jacket busts in with an assault rifle.

Ben: Hello Sir!  Do you intend to shoot all of us?
Gunman: Yes, that's the plan.
Ben: OK, can you give me a minute to rally all of these unarmed people to attack and stop you?
Gunman: Sure, that sounds fair, I'll just hang out here in the doorway for a minute.
Ben: OK everybody, out of your chairs, we're going to stop this gunman!
Student #1: Ummm, I'd really rather just sit here and maybe not get shot.
Student #2: Agreed.  Your plan seems flawed since he has a gun and we're unarmed.
Student #3: Yeah, I like being alive and if I just run at the guy with the gun, he's probably going to shoot me.
Ben: NO! NO!  You guys don't get it.  If you all run at him, some of you will probably die, but some of you might not.
Student #2: Yeah, we're definitely not doing that.
Ben: Excuse me, Mr. Gunman.  Could you give me a little more time with this? These people aren't really understanding the plan.
Gunman: Alright dude, but like, three more minutes.  I really need to get started with this.

And scene.

Now, to be honest, I don't really care what Ben thinks or says because Ben isn't going to be President and I already knew that.  Still, I was struck by the fact that Ben's solution to a mass shooting still involves a few innocent people dying, just not as many.  I've had this same concern for a while about the standard Republican response to mass shootings (most Republicans are smart enough to at least avoid suggesting that the victims were just too cowardly to live, I thought Ben was smarter than that too).

Usually, after one of these tragedies, Republicans will go on TV to talk about it.  After they get done sending thoughts and prayers, and before they get to the part where they accuse anyone talking about gun control of exploiting a tragedy for political reasons, they opine about how this all could have been prevented by a good guy with a gun.  What a wonderful world it would be if we were all constantly surrounded by armed vigilantes with itchy trigger fingers.  Everyone knows the best part of the old west was the constant possibility of being hit by a stray bullet.  Free lead everyone!

Also, Republicans have fantasies in which they play the role of Clint Eastwood, but most people aren't capable of just shooting someone.  That's why cops and military people need a lot of training, and frequently need a lot of counseling after they shoot someone.  That's why every time one of these shootings happens we talk about mental illness.  Killing someone is harder than Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina imagine it being, probably because they're both sociopaths. 

Any time someone opens fire on a group of people, even if there's a decently trained armed citizen in the crowd, a few people are going to get shot before the gunman does.  We can't shoot people before they start shooting other people unless Ben Carson is also working on a pre-crime division for the FBI (and I really hope he is, I would just like to see Rand Paul's reaction).  Sometimes these things happen in movie theaters.  Does a shoot-out between a crazy person and a vigilante in a dark theater really sound like a good idea to you?

While we're here, this is a little off topic, but let's quickly dispatch with another stupid argument.  I've heard politicians argue that we don't talk about knife control after a stabbing.  Yes, if you want to kill one person you can use almost anything you want if you're creative enough.  But if you want to kill 10 people in 3 minutes before the cops get there, a knife or a hammer won't get the job done.  Also, knives have other legitimate uses and guns are really only used for shooting stuff.  Anyway...

I don't think we should be willing to accept "less innocent people dying" as a valid goal.  That may be a realistic outcome, but I think we have to demand "zero innocent people dying" as the actual goal and work backwards from there.  I'm not saying ban all guns.  People already have them.  I also don't want to walk through a metal detector every time I go anywhere, although I feel like that's where we might wind up and I guess I can handle that if I have to.  Come to think of it, I already made a proposal http://somethingclever13.blogspot.com/2012/07/hunting-is-stupid.html

What I'm asking for is better leadership.  When you're talking about innocent people dying, less is meaningless.  I want a Presidential candidate with a proposal to get us to zero.  Why don't we demand a higher bar for our candidates?  I made this point on another topic recently.  In a country of 320 million people, only one of us has to be in charge at a time.  Is it too much to ask for one person with a new idea? 

Untitled Lance Armstrong Thing

OK, I can't think of a title for this post and I'm tired of trying.  I'm going to start reading A Farewell to Arms again soon, maybe it'll help inspire me.  Anyway...

Did you hear that Lance Armstrong supposedly confessed his use of performance enhancers to Oprah?  That's right! The worst kept secret in the history of sports, the shocking truth that you've already pretty much known for ten years, will be revealed on a channel you probably couldn't find on your TV even if you wanted to.  Get excited!

I'll be honest and say that I've never really liked Lance.  He always seemed like kind of a tool.  And you couldn't even call him a tool because people would be like "hey jerk! look at all that money he raised for cancer", and then you feel shame.  But I'm on Lance's side here.  Let's be clear about what happened.

First, Lance got cancer and everyone said he was going to die.  Then, instead of dying, he won the Tour de France seven times.  Then, he raised half a billion dollars for cancer research.  That's billion with a B, as in, holy fucking shit that guy raised half a Billion dollars for cancer research! And now, we're about to find out that he cheated at riding his bike.

And now I'm supposed to think he's a bad guy and he betrayed everyone and fuck him?  Are you fucking kidding me?  They couldn't even give away some of his Tour de France titles because all the other guys were cheating too.  You try to ride your bike around the alps without drugs sometime and see how it goes.  Do you want to be buried in Europe or would you like us to fly your body back to the States?

I heard a guy on ESPN today compare Armstrong to Joe Paterno.  Seriously?  Joe Paterno employed a guy who sexually assaulted children right under his nose.  I heard a guy on the radio today compare Armstrong to OJ Simpson.  OJ SIMPSON!!! OJ Simpson murdered two people!  Lance Armstrong cheated at bike riding.  What the fuck is wrong with you morons?

(Yes, I admit that, outside of New York, sports talk radio is always awful.  Sometimes, on the ride home, I listen to this crazy Jesus freak just for laughs, or sometimes I just listen to static.  They're both better than listening to local sports radio talk about minor league basketball and high school golf.  So it's not the best example of what people might actually be saying.  But still, morons.)

Yes, Lance is a bully and kind of a dick, just like every other great athlete you've ever met.  But he didn't steal our money.  Let me ask you something?  Did you give money to the Lance Armstrong Foundation because you think French cycling is awesome and you have to support any charity associated with it, or because you thought maybe it would be nice to cure cancer?  It's a simple question.  If we find out Lance was using the Foundation money to buy steroids, then he stole your money.  Otherwise, shut the fuck up please.

OK, yes, there's some anger here that should be rightly directed at gun nuts and Congress people who won't give money to Sandy victims.  And I'll deal with them as soon as I can write one complete sentence about either group without using the word fuck.  But for now this is the best I can do.

If you want to hate Lance Armstrong, that's OK with me.  I never really liked him to begin with.  But don't sit there and tell me he betrayed everyone, or that you thought he was a great guy until just now.  You gave him money for cancer research and he used it on cancer research.  If you were inspired by him, it was because he beat cancer.  He still did that, it wasn't a magic trick.  Would he have been significantly less inspirational to people with cancer if he had decided not to use performance enhancers and finished 9th in the Tour de France seven times.  I highly doubt it.  It sounds to me like we all got the deal we were promised.

Hunting Is Stupid

About a year and a half ago when some numbnuts opened fire on a sitting Congresswomen and a bunch of other innocent people in Tuscon, people said it wasn't the right time to talk about gun control, because you don't want to exploit a tragedy for political gain.  Really?  You know what exploiting a tragedy is?  Selling a 9/11 commemorative coin with a little picture of the twin towers on it and not giving 100% of the profits to fire fighters is exploiting a tragedy.  Talking about gun control after yet another round of pointless gun-related deaths is trying to fix the problem.  It's the same thing as building better levees after your city was destroyed by a hurricane.

Personally, I'm not really for total gun control.  Yes, I think owning a gun is dumb, but it's not really the government's job to keep us from doing dumb things.  On the other hand, rights have limits.  I'm allowed to own a car, but I'm not allowed to buy an Indy car and drive it around.  My right to own and drive an automobile is infringed upon by other peoples' right to not be killed by me zipping around the neighborhood at 200 MPH, and I'm OK with that, because I'm a grown up and I understand that we're trying to have a civilization here.

So, I understand if someone wants to own one small-magazine, non-automatic pistol for protection or whatever, but nobody needs an assault rifle.  Nobody needs a semi-automatic anything and nobody needs more than one gun.

First of all, hunting is stupid.  If you really live somewhere that requires you to hunt for food, than fine, you can have one rifle.  But in this way, most people are like me.  I can think of at least 8 supermarkets that have plenty of perfectly good edible meat and are a shorter drive from where I live than any wooded area where I would hunt for food, and I don't even live in a real city anymore.  Most people are just hunting for fun, and if killing stuff for fun is a regular part of your life, you may want to consult your local psychiatrist.

Secondly, if you really want to live off the land like our caveman ancestors (that you may or may not believe in) than shouldn't you be hunting with a crossbow or large rocks like real ancient humans?  Seriously, if you're hunting for sport, I'm not sure I see the sport in killing a deer from 50 yards away with an assault rifle.

I heard a guy on TV today say that it's perfectly reasonable for someone who shoots targets regularly to buy thousands of rounds of ammunition in a month.  I'm not sure he understands what reasonable means, and the fact the recreational gun use provides a context for someone to see purchasing thousands of bullets as reasonable should be a hint that maybe we need to scale things back a bit.

And honestly, why can't people who like to shoot targets just get bullets at the shooting range?  When I go to the driving range I hit maybe 100 balls.  I don't buy 100 golf balls.  I know you can only use a bullet once, but still.

Shouldn't we all be able to agree on this?  Why does half the country freak out at the idea of any kind of gun control?  Is it really a slippery slope?  Is an assault weapons ban really just three steps away from Barack Obama landing a helicopter on your roof and forcing you and your family to convert to islam?

Guns are everywhere, you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, they say.  OK, but that doesn't mean you leave the toothpaste all over the goddamn bathroom forever.  I hate when I hear people who are supposed to be running this place make that "well, there's nothing you can do, so screw it" argument.  If you don't feel like you can do anything about the country's problems, resign from whatever position you hold and let someone else at least try.

So here's my proposal.  Everybody gets one non-automatic gun if they want one and, like, 15 bullets a year.  If you need more than 15 bullets a year for self-defense, you might want to try not pissing so many people off.  If you have a better idea, that's fine with me.  And if you're a Senator with a better idea, or a member of the House, or a President, well that would be just great.

There's an idiot (who is also somehow a Senator, seriously) on Fox right now saying that this thing that happened Friday "isn't about guns" and he wishes he could "wave a magic wand" to stop these tragedies from happening.  He went on to say that maybe so many people wouldn't have been shot if maybe someone else in the theater had a gun and had shot back.  Yes!  Public firefights between armed crazy people and relatively untrained private citizens sound like a great idea!  Oh and he just added my favorite argument about how he'd hate to see a tragedy like this used to reduce Americans' freedom.  Congratulations Senator, you're officially a moron.

Things like this aren't the fault of anyone but the shooter, but you can see why some people point a finger at guys like this idiot on Fox right now.  You don't really need a magic wand Senator Idiot, you just need to stop being stupid and vote for an assault weapons ban.  Abracadabra!