2nd Amendment Silences First. Gun ramblings.

So the great Val shared this on Twitter not too long ago: Men With Loaded Rifles Intimidate Moms Gathered At Gun Safety Rally.

This is an under-reported type of story.  Because it underscores a very real problem.  People do not engage in their Rights to Free Speech/Assembly when they're afraid.  (As an aside, this is one of the reasons I do not write.  But that's the inner fear of criticism/judgement/whatever.  It's also why these posts never get a link posted on Facebook).

Guns silence critics.  People show up loaded to counter protest an assembly?  They aren't really there to counter protest, they are there to intimidate.  To silence the other side.  They want people to see those guns and have those people imagine those guns pointed at them.  Most people who do this tactic are smart enough to know all it takes is the presence of guns, they don't need to threaten.  They don't need to look like they're doing anything illegal.  But they are threatening all the same.

Guns are not toys.  They are not fashion accessories.  Guns were built for one purpose and one purpose only, to fling small pieces of metal at high speeds into the bodies of living creatures.  They have no purpose to be worn to any type of protest.

In this supposed civilized age (Hey we're not using them to permanently silence protesters) the fact that people truly believe that they have this inherent right to hold these items made to kill out in public disgusts me.  And it frightens me, greatly.

The fact that people still truly believe the NRA fights for their rights, rather than the rights of Gun Manufacturers sadden me.  But then, the ability of people to delude themselves is great. (It's not just a Right thing.  How many left wing Dems keep getting re-elected despite their electorates hatred of the banks the Dems answer to?)  We have not truly evolved as a people, as we're still the same cave-men, afraid of the loud noises out at night and easily manipulated by our leaders to respond how they want us to to those loud noises)

This is yet another reason why our country is not great.  Why our country is not free.  For all it takes is a few people with guns to stand there silently, to silence a large group.

Wherein I reply to random Facebook people

My wife posted this image to her facebook account before going to sleep tonight.  One person asked if it was wise that we pay someone to reproduce when the human race is overpopulating the earth.  Another person asked why should a company pay someone for not doing anything for them.

I had two responses to this:

When I got shot

On the evening of December 31, 1996 I was hanging out with a couple of friends of mine.  We were bored and trying to think of something to do, when one of them said to go to their place because, hey, they have more games.  So we went over there and began playing Magic at the small kitchen table.  Most of his family was home at the time and they were doing their own thing.

Eventually we got all drawn into a conversation with a couple members of his family and we got up from our game and just stood around the kitchen.  One, Rich, grabbed a fake red little gun.  The kind that presses against powder packs to make it go "POP POP POP".  Well this one would but it was broken, even with the packs it could not make a POP noise.

He's idly pulling the trigger while talking, when suddenly there were loud POP POP POP sounds.  Rich was suddenly holding his right arm to him, and when I looked down I saw blood on my shirt.  I assumed, as did most people, that it was spray from his getting shot.  Several seconds later, as I was getting dizzy, we realized I had 3 holes in my abdomen and one in my arm.

My friend's father grabs his gun, and we all shelter against walls.  Not that it would do much good, as we later learned the bullets had to have passed through the Garage Roof, Garage wall and Foyer wall to hit us in the kitchen.  Which they did.  One, a rifle round, hit somewhere in a bedroom and landed perfectly in a bag of clothes.  911 was called.  And then my mother (who assumed it was her sister calling her as the Ball had just dropped).

The owner of the house threw his gun up on a fridge as the police arrived, as he did not want to be a statistic, and they cased the place and the neighborhood around.  (Later we found the shooter was on the balcony of the house behind this one, across the alley).  I was taken to the hospital first.  And let me tell you, catheters are NOT fun.  But I was out by 2:30 am, as they saw that the bullets had missed my organs and just traveled through skin and fat.

A surgeon, later, told me they don't remove bullets often anymore unless they have to, due to digging around to remove them tends to cause more damage than the shooting does.  Historically, many people who died of gunshots (especially assassinations) died of the surgery, not the actual shooting.

Four holes in my body.  One, the left most in my abdomen, was the same bullet that hit Rich's arm (which shattered bone, he had to get a steel plate put in).  The one that went in my right arm (stopping a couple millimeters before hitting my bone) traveled through my abdomen first.

I got so fucking lucky.  Several months later, my right arm started to reject the bullet inside of it so I had to go through surgery to have it removed.  That scar is far more visible than the 3 shooting scars I still have.

That Which Slithers Into Sight 5?

It was over in but a few moments.  The dark void that was, apparently, my public defender flowed into me completely and I could feel its raw power fuse into my being.  Darkness slithered over my eyes and I saw things in a new way. The building around me now looked as if it was rotted and full of mold.  Insects slithered along every possible surface, and cracks appeared in all the walls.

That Which Slithers Into Sight 4?

Upon seeing the featureless black void that was apparently my public defender, I backed as far as I could against the holding cell and stared.  The public defender said to the officer in its gravelly voice, "What's his tox screen look like?"

That Which Slithers Into Sight 3?

I wasted no time.  I ran out of the building into the outside world.  Feeling the air hit my skin made me realize I left the blanket on the floor in front of my door, "Fuck me."  I ran at my full speed, my muscles not even aching from the four  miles I ran earlier, towards the wooded wetlands only a block from my apartment.  Figuring that was a place I could at least partially hide while I thought things through.  It did not take me long to get there at all.

That Which Slithers Into Sight, 2?

The blaze of glorious light that emanated from the person before me washed over the area around me.  The gray dirty walls of the hospital now appeared white and spotless.  The area behind him teemed with green plant life that just glistened in the sunlight.  Well, the area that was not a gray parking lot anyway.  Glorious light could only do so much it seems.