I’m hoping at some point today I’ll get angry. Anger might be nice. Right now all I can muster up is a sort of deep, abiding melancholy.
Today there’ll be the standard offering of thoughts and prayers for the victims and their families, which are totally fucking worthless. As usual, there’ll be a pointless search for ‘answers’ — why and how ‘something like this’ can happen here. But whatever answers there are to be found will be totally fucking worthless, because we won’t actually do anything. There’ll be the predictable calls for effective gun legislation, which will be totally fucking worthless — and of course gun sales in Florida will skyrocket for a week or so, also totally fucking worthless.
There’ll be tearful memorial services, and people will leave flowers and notes and teddy bears outside the nightclub, and some newspaper or magazine will print photographs of all twenty twenty-nine fifty (the butcher’s bill keeps changing) of the fatally wounded victims. And it’ll all be totally fucking worthless, because we’ve done all that before and we all know that we’ll be doing it again.
Waiting for the dead and wounded.
For the next few days we’ll be reading the tweets sent by folks in the nightclub, we’ll be seeing chaotic smartphone videos and facebook posts. We’ll be hearing accounts from those who escaped, and the memories of family and friends of the dead (“He was a good boy, never bothered anybody, always willing to help, loved animals”), and we’ll tell ourselves what a tragic event this was and lamenting how many young, innocent lives were cut short. But all that will be totally fucking worthless because absolutely nothing will change. Not one goddamn thing.
I’m back. I had to step away for a while. Because you know what else is totally fucking worthless? Another blog post on another mass shooting.
I’d probably have just deleted all this and got on with my day had I not had a short chat with a friend. Here’s the reason it was a short chat — he said “Bernie would have found a way to get gun control passed if the election hadn’t been stolen from him.” And that anger I’d been searching for, it started to perk up. I held it in, though, and said if the Democrats can re-take Congress, maybe Hillary can get something passed. Which is when he said something like “I’ll never vote for Hillary, I’m done voting for the lesser of two evils, I’ll vote for the Green Party, I don’t care if Trump wins.”
Here’s yet another thing that’s totally fucking worthless: that guy’s opinion. But it helped me find that anger.
If there any chance at all — even a remote chance — of passing even the weakest and most tepid gun safety legislation, Democrats need to keep the White House and win both houses of Congress. Trump sure as hell isn’t going to do anything about guns.
Don’t tell me you want to stop mass shootings but aren’t willing to vote for Clinton because your candidate lost the primary. I don’t care if you think Clinton and Donald Trump are both the spawn of Satan — only one spawn of Satan has professed any interest in passing some responsible gun laws. I don’t care if the Green Party candidate has a plan to seize and melt every goddamn gun in the US and turn them all into orthodontic braces for poor kids — the Green Party isn’t going to win; they can only suck votes away from Clinton. I don’t care if the notion of voting for Clinton actually makes you physically ill — vomit, then vote Democratic and start pushing for gun safety legislation.
You don’t have to like Clinton. You don’t even have to trust her. All you have to do is ask yourself which of the two candidates — which of the two major political parties — is most likely to press for reasonable gun safety laws. And if you loathe Hillary Clinton more than you loathe mass shootings, then as far as I’m concerned you’re also totally fucking worthless.
gregfallis.com 
Yes.
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Reblogged this on Pearlie Mae, Mermaid and commented:
Thank you, Greg.
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I am still in shock – the whole rape situation and now this – and now an imbecile says Bernie could have fixed it? No – he couldn’t have – and you’re right on every single fucking point. And – the thing that people don’t seem to get about Hillary? is that she has more experience, she is more prepared to handle this – than anyone has EVER BEEN!!! She will have to work with the same machine that Obama’s been having to work with – so would Bernie. My anger is so dispersed right now – I’m just not functioning very well.
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I like and respect Bernie Sanders. I supported him for most of the primary season. He’s a good man and he’d have made a fine president. The reason I stopped supporting him was simply because his campaign began to consistently indicate that the only reason he wasn’t winning was because he was being cheated. And Bernie, I’m sorry to say, encouraged that perception.
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Anyone at this point who is not planning on voting for the Democratic nominee even if that is Hillary has not truly been listening to Bernie. Keeping Trump out of the White House is his top priority at this time. Just this morning on the George Stephanopoulos show he said “But I think if Hillary Clinton is smart, and she certainly is smart, she will understand that good public policy, taking on the big money interests and standing up for working families, standing up for the environment, standing up for clean water, is in fact good politics. Can she do that? Yes.” Bernie himself recognizes that though Hillary may not go as far as he would, working with her within the system is the best option we have. If you are going to listen to Bernie, then actually listen to him.
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There it is — the best option we have. Hillary’s incrementalism isn’t nearly as appealing as Bernie’s ‘revolution’. But incremental improvement is vastly superior to Trump’s ‘Hulk Smash’ approach.
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Yes… this! Thank you <3
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You’re an idiot. The MUSLIM (you forgot to mention that) who called out to ISIS before killing FIFTY GAYS was interviewed by YOUR PRESIDENT’S FBI THREE TIMES.
He bought his firearms after being cleared by the FBI.
NO GUN CONTROL COULD HAVE STOPPED HIM.
Only a NON -PC FBI and immigration policy (his LOON FATHER worships the Taliban) could have stopped this.
Only GOOD PEOPLE armed with guns could have stopped him.
But you, YOU call for MORE DISARMAMENT of law -abiding people to stop A MUSLIM BASTARD whom YOU WON”T EVEN DESCRIBE AS MUSLIM.
YOU are responsible here, you and all the libs who refuse to discuss THE MUSLIM PROBLEM.
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Lawdy, where to start?
First, there’s plenty of evidence that the killer’s claim of ISIS involvement is grounded more in his need to find a justification for the killing than in any actual allegiance to ISIS.
Second, that said, his religion certainly played a part in the killing. He hated/fear gay folks — like a lot of religious extremists. Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, even Buddhists — they’ve all done horrible things in the name of their religion or faith. The problem isn’t their religion; it’s their extremism.
Third, assuming you’re a US citizen, President Obama is YOUR president as well. We don’t get to dismiss the validity of the office just because we disagree with the person who holds it. If you search through this blog (which I rather doubt you’ll do) you’ll find that even though I had/have no respect for President Bush, I always referred to him as President Bush because the office itself is deserving of respect.
Fourth, you’re partly right. The killer bought his weapons legally. To say ‘No gun control could have stopped him’ may or may not be true — but certainly it could have reduced the body count. He was carrying high capacity magazines. If we’d kept and enforced the law that prohibited magazines of more than 10 rounds, more people could have escaped.
You’re right that gun safety legislation will never stop murder — or even mass murder. But you’re completely wrong if you think that we couldn’t make it more difficult to commit mass murder and reduce the butcher’s bill.
And by the way, one of the reasons he was able to legally buy the weapons he used to kill and injure so many people is because Congress refused to tighten the law to restrict gun sales. As it stands now, we have people in the US who aren’t allowed to fly in commercial airlines because they’re on a terrorist watch list, but who are still able to legally purchase firearms. That’s fucked up.
Fifth, that whole notion of the ‘good guy with a gun’ has proven to be a myth. Good guys with guns end up killing a LOT more Americans than Islamic extremists.
Sixth, we disagree on the very nature of the problem. You claim it’s a Muslim problem. I suggest the real problem is how easy it is for anybody to get hold of a firearm.
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You need to google Sander’s record on gun control. He voted against the Brady act as well as a few other things. I wouldn’t say he’s in the pocket of the NRA but he’s no friend to people who want change in our gun laws.
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Actually Bernie has shifted his position on firearm legislation. I’m absolutely okay with his position on gun safety law.
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