Oh, Good Grieve

On Saturday, four people were shot dead and 28 injured at a Sweet Sixteen party in Alabama.  The governor of Alabama Key Ivey put out a tweet –

“This morning, I grieve with the people of Dadeville and my fellow Alabamians. Violent crime has NO place in our state, and we are staying closely updated by law enforcement as details emerge.”

It was a horrific event, again.  Heart-sickening tragic, again.

I have only one slight correction to what Gov. Ivey wrote with such soulful meaning -- Alabama has an open carry law for anyone 19 years or older with no gun permit required, so as it happens violent crime does in fact have a place in your state.

Indeed, Alabama has the 14th highest violent crime rate in the country.  And while they didn’t make the top 10, which is a good thing, the violent crime rate in Alabama is higher than California, Illinois and New York (at #26), states that Republicans go out of their way to trash as the poster children for their violent crime.  So, again, yes, Gov. Kay Ivey was wrong because violent crime has an important place in Alabama.

On the positive side, Gov. Ivey left out the standard GOP trope of “thoughts and prayers” (tm),  which suggests that even Republicans are starting to realize that “thoughts and prayers” (tm) not only have no effect on the tsunami of mass killings, but it’s gotten past the point of making them look really bad by offering only “thoughts and prayers” (tm) and nothing more – like gun safety legislation to actually help the epidemic.

After all, this, of course, was only the most recent mass shooting this year in the U.S., which is average over one a day.  So far, there have been at least 147 mass shootings in 136 days.

On the other hand, not every Republican was as grieved about violent crime in their state.  South Dakota’s Republican governor Kristi Noem spoke at the NRA Convention on Friday (which should be a big hint at what’s about to come, since speaking at the NRA Convention tends to make people believe they have an obligation to declare their love for guns more than you’ll hear the praise of Jesus at an evangelical tent revival, and almost as religious…), and she bragged about how her two-year-old granddaughter is getting a head start of things and already owns a shotgun and a rifle. No word if she also has bullets.  (If not, it would be nice if a reporter asked Ms. Noem why not?)

For the record:  this bit of GOP bluster about a two-year olds owning a couple of guns came 18 days after three children and three adults were killed at an elementary school in Nashville.

As a guest said on MSNBC after hearing Noem’s clueless words, two-year-olds should have toys, not guns.

My own thought was, thanks for the early heads-up.  Put her on the Watch List.

But no, Kristi Noem was not finished with embarrassing herself.  Later, on the NRA stage, she decided to do a little more political theater and signed an executive order to "protect the God-given right to keep and bear arms from being infringed upon by financial institutions."

Now, I’m not quite sure what “financial institutions” she’s referring to that are supposedly infringing Second Amendment rights, though what I do know is that her timing was again utterly horrific and tone-deaf, since they came only four days after five people were shot to death in a Louisville bank.

In fairness, to the repeated cold, heartless timing of Kristi Noem’s words, I think we’re at the point where any time you say something in support of guns, there have been so many mass shootings that you can point to it being “bad timing.”  Though, of course, some timing is far worse.  And more unthinking.

What I’m also not quite sure of is her repeating the popular gun advocate cry of their “God-given right” to own a gun.  Because, although I’m no Biblical scholar, I’m nonetheless not aware of it being anywhere in the Bible.  And I do know that the U.S. Constitution was written by men.

Four dead and 28 injured in the latest shooting, this time in Alabama. At times like these, which are pretty regular, I always wonder if Rep. Clyde (R-GA) continues to proudly pass out his cute AR-15 pins -- or keeps wearing his?

And I always think how lucky it is for Andy Ogles (R-TN) that he only sent out AR-15 family Christmas cards, not ones for Easter. 

All that’s missing in all this is Charlie Kirk once again saying how the 32 people shot and four dead in Alabama is “worth it” to protect having a gun.  But then, for all I know, he did.  Unless he was too busy reveling in the afterglow of the NRA Convention.

I understand that Republican politicians these days like to double-down -- and even triple-down -- in support of issues that polls consistently show the vast majority of Americans are angered by.   I also understand the old adage that children learn on the schoolyard, that two wrongs actually do not make a right.  The corollary is that three wrongs does make you appear complicit.

Swaggering with bravado has its place, like at Mardi Gras.  But between trying to end abortion, banning books, justifying an Insurrection to overthrow the government, banning children from traveling to get an abortion, criminalizing men wearing a dress while reading stories to children, and being okay with children getting killed and killed and killed -- and then expelling duly-elected black representatives outraged by those deaths, it seems like a really poor agenda for a political party.

No matter how much you say you "grieve" for the misery of others.  While swaggering.