JUNE 2002 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

Shakespeare wrote something like “It’s an ill day that brings forth the adder.” Well, you can count on a horrific Uvalde mass shooting to bring out Republican Adders, and they didn’t disappoint. Given the proliferation of many idiotic comments about guns and mass shootings, I will limit this month’s IGGY comments on the gun question.

1. Heather Ann Sprague, Republican Candidate for Maine’s House of Repersentatives. Evil deeds seem to always bring out IGGY-worthy absurdities. Thus, we get tortured explanations like the following, from Republicans who need to continually trot out fresh bugaboos to keep their base from questioning the wisdom of putting assault rifles in the hands of teenagers. You see, it’s liberal teachers who did it—at least according to Republican hopeful Heather Ann Sprague, who helpfully posted some of her transphobic thoughts on Facebook in the wake of the tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

According to Sprague, “Liberal teachers” are responsible for the mass shooting at a Texas elementary school that killed 19 children and two teachers.

In an apparent reference to a rumor on social media that has been debunked, Sprague claimed there were pictures online of the shooter dressed in women’s clothing, obviously a “confused” transgender kid.

“All I have to say is this is the result of what happens when kids are pushed past their limits. It’s obvious he was brainwashed in school by liberal teachers to think he shouldn’t be a male. If this crap doesn’t stop we will have more shootings because there are alot more confused, fed up and now mentally ill kids out there thanks to the #publicschoolsystem. THIS is why I have been TRYING to get the truth out about what the schools are doing to our youth because it’s DANGEROUS,” Sprague said in her post.

NBC news reported that a transgender woman’s photo was used to spread the baseless theory about the Texas shooter. The thread began on forum website 4chan and was spread by right-wing Facebook pages. Its falsity, of course, didn’t stop conservatives—including Republican Rep. Paul Gosar--from spreading it far and wide.

So, Sprague took unconfirmed information that felt comforting to her, and instead of researching it thoroughly, she immediately weaponized it in order to smear liberals and deflect responsibility from her own party’s shameful lack of action?

In another Facebook post, Sprague wrote, “I’ll go a step further and say the teachers that molded this kid into a #killer should be arrested for multiple MURDERS.” But not the person who sold the gunman two assault rifles with multiple rounds on his 18th birthday. Okay.

She also wrote, “more and more I cant help but think these shootings are on purpose to push gun control with the lives of babes. If they’re not getting shot they’re getting aborted. It’s disgusting and EVIL. If elected I will push to have armed guards at ALL our schools here in Maine.”

Of course, this is the same kind of muck conservatives stir up whenever there’s a mass shooting. They mix all that roiling sediment with our own righteous indignation in order to muddy what should be a pretty clear picture, and then they wait for the whole mess to settle down again—which it inevitably will, no doubt before Congress is spurred to take anything even resembling meaningful action.

By the way, Sprague is the only Republican running in her district, and will face incumbent Democrat Ann Matlack in the general election. So, voters, it seems, will have a pretty stark choice in this election between bullshit and reality. Let’s hope they choose wisely.

2. Donald Trump, Jr. Whenever there is a horrific event that boggles the mind, we’re lucky we can turn to Donald Trump Jr to set things straight. Junior set the record straight:

The real problems are "screwed up people," "crazy teachers" and "indoctrination programs" in schools, not assault rifle.”

In an incredible display of utter tastelessness, Trump Jr. insisted in a rage-fueled video on social media this month that the Uvalde mass shooter could have killed 19 children and two teachers with a “bat.”

Assault rifles are being stigmatized when “screwed up people” are the real issue, he railed in a Facebook video.

The red-faced, nearly teary-eyed mini-Trump shouted that the shooter was a “sociopath” who could wreak the same havoc with nearly any other weapon.

“It’s the gun; it’s not the sociopath wielding it,” people are claiming, he complained. “He wouldn’t have done the exact same thing with a bat, or a bomb, or some sort of improvised device — or a machete?” he added.

“That’s what’s going on right now, guys. Enough is enough,” said Trump, who said he’s looking for “accountability.” “Never ends, man,” he added.

The big question here is whether Trump Jr. is really that dumb, hate-filled, tasteless, belligerent, or simply unable to climb out of this father’s ass—Or, all of the above.

3. Arizona Senate Candidate Blake Masters. Just when you think Republicans can’t get any more loathsome, another steps up to unleash even more racist, conspiratorial rhetoric. Arizona Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters is the latest gem.

As first reported by The Daily Beast during an April interview on Jeff Oravits Show podcast, Masters offered his half-cent theory on why America has such a horrific gun violence issue: It’s the “Black people,” he says. No wonder he’s endorsed by President Trump. It all makes sense.

Masters acknowledges that there is a problem with gun violence in the nation, but it’s not the proliferation of weapons or the fact that it’s easier to get a gun than Sudafed. Nope. The “gangs” are the problem, he claims. “It’s people in Chicago and St. Louis shooting each other,” he says, and “very often, Black people, frankly.”

Now we get it: It’s the Black people. If we just got rid of them, we wouldn’t have any more gun violence. Why didn’t we think of that before? Oh, and by the way, Masters alleges that the “Democrats don’t want to do anything” about gang violence.Bottom of Form

Masters is skillful at diverting attention , Business Insider reports, that at one point Masters’ campaign posted a pledge on its website plainly stating he would only vote to confirm federal judges “who understand that  Roe and Griswold and Casey were wrongly decided and that there is no constitutional right to abortion.” That has since been removed. So, Masters not only claims that President Biden nominated Justice Jackson based only on her race and gender, he also wants Roe overturned as soon as possible.

Trump has called Masters “a great modern-day thinker,” CNN reports, and Fox News’ Tucker Carlson refers to him as “the future of the Republican Party,” according to Politico.

“President Trump is a great man and a visionary,” Masters said in a statement to CNN. “It’s incredible to have his endorsement. I wish everyone could know how this feels.”

“Blake knows that the crime of the century took place, he will expose it, and also never let it happen again,” Trump said.

Trump a great visionary?

By the way, most mass shootings are committed by white Americans, according to Statista Research Department. “Between 1982 and June 2022, 68 out of the 129 mass shootings in the United States were carried out by white shooters. … Broadly speaking, the racial distribution of mass shootings mirrors the racial distribution of the U.S. population as a whole.”

4. Texas Republican Pat Fallon. So far, Republicans have blamed everything under the sun for the recent rash of mass shootings in this country: Pence, video games, weed, an absence of the very same mental health services they keep cutting, too many doors, too few “good guys” with guns, etc. But dang it if that list doesn’t look incomplete.

Enter Rep. Fallon, who is certain he’s finally cracked the case:

FALLON: “The truth is that guns have always been readily available in this country, but mass shootings, and particularly mass shootings in schools, were nonexistent or at least were extremely rare until they became a grisly recent phenomenon. So, what’s changed in the last 50 years? There’s been a noticeable breakdown of the family, there’s been an erosion of faith, and there’s been a seismic drop in social interaction in large measure due to the overuse of these dang smartphones and the proliferation of social media, which is probably better described as anti-social media. Senseless mass shootings are not committed by well-adjusted, successful, socially polished people. ...”

Should kids go outside and play more often? I don’t know. Isn’t that where all the child kidnappers and marauding bears are? Is Fallon arguing that we should enact federal laws to protect children from the potential pitfalls of the internet? Oh, wait, we already did that. And yet, for some reason, 18-year-olds in most states can still amble into a gun shop and buy an assault rifle.

Also, Rep. Fallon should really do a better job of lining up his supposed causes with their putative effects. Faith has been eroding for decades, even as overall violent crime rates have plummeted, And, conservatives have been tut-tutting about family breakdown for as long as anyone can remember.

But we still have all these mass shootings. And by “we,” I mean the United States—the only country in the world with divorces and smartphones, apparently.

Ah, but Fallon isn’t really this naive. What he’s doing here is giving his “the world is falling apart because of those durn liberals” spiel and hoping it will satisfy his constituents until the price of gas goes up another 2 cents and everyone loses focus again.

I’d like to say he’s wasting his time, but who are we kidding? Fallon speaks fluent conservative, and as long as he’s besmirching liberal cuckoos, his followers are apt to believe just about anything.

While smartphones—which are inanimate objects with no moral agency, just like, erm, guns—can certainly lead to criminality, saying they’re a clear and present danger to society may be a bit of a stretch. The one exception is if you’ve given Matt Gaetz your Venmo username and account info. And no, those aren’t NFTs he’s sending you. They’re NSFWs. Seriously, though, can you imagine what’s on that guy’s phone? Answer: Every bodily fluid known to modern science. And what’s in it is arguably worse. By the way, I heard Matt Gaetz was gonna buy his girlfriend an engagement ring with Apple Pay, but he was worried she’d just grow out of it in six months, so …

Anyhoo, enough about that loser. This story is about a completely different loser—one with aggressively weird ideas about how the world works.

5. Representative Ken Buck (R-Col.) and Senator John Thune (R. SD). The Republican Party, resigned to never doing anything about gun violence as long as the money keeps pouring into their campaigns, have gotten lazier in their defense of assault-style, high-powered weaponry. At issue is the fact that there really isn’t any meaningful need to allow citizens unfettered access to military-style weapons. Even if one is under the misconception of keeping fire arms in the home offers up real protection from invaders, and makes one safer, it is hard to defend the idea that having an unwieldy rifle just lying next to your bed at night is a logistically viable way to handle close proximity conflicts.

But banning assault weapons or assault-style rifles is a blow to the big business of death. And since the GOP is a death cult focused almost entirely on consolidating money and power, they need to scuttle any legislation that might help make American safer from guns. So. what’s the defense coming out of the mouths of GOP officials? Varmint. Prairie dogs. Excuse me!

According to both Rep. Buck and Sen. Thune, vermin like “prairie dogs” and “raccoon” are the main targets for people owning AR-15-style, semiautomatic rifles. The longer .223 bullet round that travels at a far higher velocity than many rifles and handguns and delivers considerably more foot-pounds of force, is essential for gun-loving Coloradans and South Dakotans in their eternal war against … vermin.

During a Congressional hearing on gun violence, Rep. Buck used some of his time to zoom in from his kitchen and say that AR-15s were needed to stop raccoons “before they get to the chickens.” He wasn’t making a joke. This poorly written script, possibly jotted down with bloody hands by some whiskey-soaked gun lobbyist for Buck to read, was his excuse for how AR-15s—a gun that was manufactured with the military in mind—is a normal civilian firearm. Buck’s position, like most NRA stoolies’, is not shocking.

Buck is one of those perverse new Republican representatives that believe they should be allowed to strap on their garishly-painted guns and walk around Congress. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020, after voting against funding to help Americans dealing with the then-new pandemic, Buck tweeted out a threat aimed at Democratic candidates Joe Biden and Beto O’Rourke, where he gripped an AR-15 in his congressional office, like he was terrified there were raccoons running rip-shot through the hallways.

Sen. John Thune, probably sprinting to the safety of his office through those very same vermin-haunted hallways, was asked a series of questions about what the state of gun safety legislation was by CNN. Here’s his response:

Did you catch that? “Varmints.” Prairie dogs. The last part is the addendum excuse the anti-gun legislation crowd always add in: There are already too many guns in circulation, so doing anything won’t matter, so let’s continue to do nothing. While Thune didn’t have a specific number at hand, Rep. Buck offered up “something like 20 million,” when he was sitting in his kitchen, likely holding his feet off of the floor because of how many varmints might be attacking his homestead during that hearing. The AR-15 is called the “most popular rifle sold in America” by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, and they should know as they make all of their money promoting guns.

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Putting feelings about animals and hunting aside, I totally get why some people like using the AR-15 to kill raccoons and pigs and other varmints that may be wreaking havoc on their land. It’s an easy and reliable way to kill those rodentia. But there are other guns, that take more skill, and can also kill animals. And while there are times when large-scale hunts of wild hogs and the like are sanctioned by conservationists, the majority of AR-15 users aren’t facing off against hoards of small game overrunning their castle walls.

Cowboy up! As they say, get a backbone. Think of the children—not the chickens.

6. Eric Geitens: Republican Senate Candidate in Missouri. Geitens released a new campaign ad showing him racking a shotgun and accompanying a team of men armed with assault rifles as they stormed—SWAT-team-style—into a home in search of “RINOS,” Republicans in name only. In the ad, Geitens blurts:

“Join the MAGA crew. Get a RINO hunting permit. There’s no bagging limit, and it doesn’t expire until we save our country.”

Geitens’ ad is just the latest, but perhaps the most menacing, in a long line of Republican campaign ads featuring firearms and seeking to equate hard-core conservatism with the use of deadly weapons.

Happiness is a warm gun!

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And the June winner is:

There are a lot of worthy ignominious absurdities this month; mass shootings tend to bring out the worst in people. But, for pure evilness, I must give this month’s IGGY to Eric Geitens. To put such hateful venom in a campaign ad? Ignominious to the core.