Bullet Points

Okay, this week is a mulligan. The negative political ramifications of the Charlie Kirk killing are weighing too heavily on my tiny mind to create something that isn't filled with gore and blood and vehemence, so I'm offering a 'toon from early 2023 that's appropriate for the times.

(BTW, am I the only one mildly surprised that the perp in the Kirk shooting didn't go down after a gunfight with the FBI? I mean, how odd to have a live suspect these days.)

I'm now going to go put my feet up and watch a few classic movies this weekend with the lady friend and try to chase this dark mood back to the Hell from whence it came and pray to any stray god that's listening to let us poor Americans have a moment's rest from these Republican animals.

I now leave you with a bit of prose I wrote today and shared elsewhere.

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We HAVE a loser!

Apparently the father of the Kirk shooter, a policeman, recognized his son from the video and had him turn himself in.

(Update: Very Conservative, gun-loving, Trump-supporting family.)

If this really is the culprit, and it seems so, I apologize for publicly ascribing much more sinister intent to the shooting, though it doesn't mean Trump and his pals won't continue to profit off the event for political purposes. It is, however, going to be difficult for them to blame Democrats going forward though it certainly didn't stop Republican proxies from doing so in the Hortman killings.

Polling suggests that Americans overwhelmingly want gun control but the Kirk shooting will not move that needle when it comes to Republican support of such legislation. Even the Butler "assassination" attempt saw the GOP continue to sit on their hands.

I've always thought a more sensible approach to the Second Amendment was to only limit public access to weapons of the hunt and self defense: Hunting rifles and shotguns. Also, hunting rifles would have to be licensed and available only during the hunting seasons. We called them "armories" back in the day and it worked.

Even so, Kirk was killed with a hunting rifle so even my bare-bones approach to the Second wouldn't have prevented his death. But the type of weapon used didn't matter. What really killed Kirk was that this country is awash in the glorification of the gun. Guns are the alpha and the omega to many. So until we purge from the public zeitgeist the romantic notion of the lone killer seeking justice and glory with their trigger fingers all the gun control in the universe won't help.

Kirk didn't deserve to die for espousing his toxic and divisive beliefs (If that is indeed why he was shot) but he most certainly became famous for his toxic and divisive beliefs, and that made him a target.

In short, THIS is the culture that really killed Charlie Kirk.




- Lefty