Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R-TX) on Sunday told CNN’s Candy Crowley that guns aren’t the problem but video games are, because gun owners — like the Norway shooter — use video games for target practice. Blackburn admitted to watching “Call Of Duty,” so no doubt Oslo’s citizens are in lock-down mode, in full freak-out mode, or something, right?
It seems Rep. Blackburn wants the American people to realize that guns don’t kill people, video games kill people. Also, hammers. And hatchets. And “psychiatric and psychotropic drugs.” And cars.
Because Congresswoman Blackburn says what she’s hearing is “first of all, people want to make sure that we protect the Second Amendment.”
Yes, it’s the Second Amendment that needs protection — not people, but the Second Amendment that needs protection. It’s a similar argument to why we need to protect marriage — because gay people might steal it. Or, something.
“Also, I’m hearing from lots of teachers, mental health professionals, physicians, that we need to do a couple of things. Number one is to drill down on the mental health issue and number two is to look at these psychiatric and psychotropic drugs, because that is many times linked to the individuals who carry out these crimes.”
Psychiatric drugs linked to shootings? Yes, it’s not the fact that some (or all) of these shooters have mental health issues, it’s the drugs they’re taking for their illness or conditions that are the problem. Also, I’m not overweight because I sit too much and eat too many sweets, I’m fat because, sugar.
If only America could unite and agree on something to stop these “psychotropic drugs,” something, maybe, like a War On Drugs! That would of course stop these shootings, because there’s absolutely no evidence that the War On Drugs has fueled the shootings. Oh, wait.
“They are also wanting to make certain that we begin to get in behind these video games. I watched a couple of these last night — in preparation for this segment — as a mother and as a grandmother and I was astounded, with some of the things that I was seeing on ‘Call To Duty,’ and of course we know the Norway shooter would go in and use that as target practice.”
Someone, please, call the Norway Police because Congresswoman Blackburn may just very well be thinking about flying over to Oslo, after she’s watched “Call of Duty.”
After Rep Blackburn’s comments, no doubt hardware store owners are saying, “I’ll give you my hammers when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.”
The fact is, maybe violent video games contribute to the 34 gun deaths that happen in America every day, but the fact is also that practically every other country in the world has these video games and they don’t have our 30,000+ gun deaths every year.
The fact is that guns kill, and guns — not hammers, not hatchets, not “psychiatric and psychotropic drugs” — are designed for one purpose: to kill.
Blackburn, (who, by the way, was one of the 67 House Republicans who voted against Hurricane Sandy relief,) and her comrades in the GOP, the Tea Party, the NRA refuse to look the problem straight in the eye and admit there are too many guns in this country, and people like them (ironically, most or all of them are “pro-life”) are fueling the issue by refusing to ban at least some guns.
(Please, ban them all.)
Aviva Shen at Think Progress notes:
America’s gun homicide rate is 19.5 times higher than comparable nations. The FBI estimates that 8,775 people were killed by guns in 2010 — more than an order of magnitude higher than the 540 people killed with blunt objects. Furthermore, despite the gun lobby’s scapegoating of mentally ill individuals, people with mental health problems are not statistically more likely to be violent than the average person.
“You know,” Congresswoman Blackburn tells Crowley, “this is something where you say, number one, let’s keep children safe, and number two, let’s protect our freedoms.”
I wholeheartedly agree with Congresswoman Blackburn. Her idea of “protecting our freedoms” is definitely a load of “number two.”