This Has Got to Stop

I just read this article in The Washington Post and it shook me to my core.

The place is Lubbock, Texas. It’s 9 a.m. One usually doesn’t expect anything nefarious to happen at 9 a.m.

That’s how the 11 Texas National Guard soldiers felt as they left the armory in three vans that morning. They were transporting coronavirus vaccine to the town of Matador, 80 miles away. They were unarmed. Why on earth should it be otherwise?

Unfortunately, they failed to take into account the increasingly obvious fact that there are a lot of insane and/or stupid people in this country, and many of them carry guns. Especially in red states.

One such stupid and/or insane person is Larry Harris, 66, from Arizona. It seems that he started following the National Guardsmen almost immediately after they left the compound. He came charging down the highway after them, and tried to run them off the road. He then swerved into oncoming traffic, and ordered these 11 guys, some of them barely into adulthood, out of their vans at gunpoint.

Fortunately the police arrived quickly. Even more fortunately, none of the trained soldiers or officers used guns themselves. Things could have ended a lot worse for Nutjob Harris. He’s lucky he isn’t a POC.

Harris told the police that he thought that the convoy was transporting a kidnapped woman and child. And he was pissed. He decided to take matters into his own hands.

I find this story to be a bit idiotic. Yes, the vans were unmarked, but he saw them leaving a National Guard Armory. The guys in the vans were all in uniform, and he saw them stop for coffee, waiting patiently while they did so. And it doesn’t take three vans to abduct a woman and child.

This was a mental case who was armed with the false courage that only a weapon can give you. He wanted to be a vigilante. He wanted to be a hero. And he put countless numbers of lives at risk. The soldiers. The police, the people in the oncoming traffic. All the people who were scheduled to get vaccines that might not have gotten them due to his recklessness.

The situation is still under investigation, but I hope they throw his butt under the jail.

All this gun idiocy has got to stop. Yes, we have the second amendment. But there is nowhere in its wording that says you get to use it to run national guardsmen off the road. It also says nothing about storming the capitol building, just based on the encouragement of one pathetic Cheeto-colored man who is trying to use you to maintain power, and to hell with democracy.

The second amendment also doesn’t mention that people should have the right to bear more powerful weapons than this bozo did. The types of assault weapons that exist today weren’t even imagined in 1791 when it was written. These weapons serve one purpose: to kill vast number of human beings quickly and efficiently. You don’t use an AR-15 to hunt for food, if you are a self-respecting hunter. The average person should have no more right to own an assault weapon than he or she does to own lawn darts or landmines or surface to air missiles. That’s not an infringement on freedom. That’s common freakin’ sense.

Background checks, too, are not an infringement on your rights. Those National Guardsmen had been background checked. I guarantee it. If you can’t pass a background check, you shouldn’t have a gun in the first place. I’m sorry if you feel that preventing some loony-tune from killing innocent children and total random strangers is an inconvenience to your building up your arsenal. I suspect you’ll survive. If you were a responsible person who cared about the wider world, you wouldn’t have to be told this.

I’m grateful that none of the Texas National Guardsmen were hurt during this insanity. I’m grateful that we have people like them delivering vaccines where they need to go. And as for Nutjob Harris, if there had been background checks before he bought his handgun, maybe this situation could have been prevented, just as so many situations could be prevented if we had rational gun laws on the books.

Ninety percent of Americans feel the way I do about this subject. It’s only the obscene money that the NRA throws at politicians that prevents legislation from passing. I encourage everyone to stop voting for politicians who are bought and paid for by the NRA. They’re easy to spot. They’re the ones refusing to vote on legislation that would protect our children from mass slaughter.

And before I end this rant, let me send out a hail and hardy Fuck You to the NRA. I’m glad you are circling the drain through your own malfeasance. Your greed doesn’t get to come before even a single human life.

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