Foul-mouthed Wonkette wag-ette Rebecca Schoenkopf read RF’s earlier post in which he highlighted her standard, lefty playbook, by-the-numbers portrayal of all gun owners after a couple of open carriers waltzed through Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport fully strapped. During a hellacious hissy in which she all but played the hoary compensating-for-their-small-penises card, Schoenkopf reached down deep into her progressive thesaurus and pronounced “Mr. Big Brave Manly Macho” a total fncking a$$hole. Just the kind of enlightened conversation about guns the civilian disarmament side can be counted on to carry on. But there’s more! She then revealingly jumped into our comment section looking for juicy Tweet fodder and it’s safe to say that a good time was not necessarily had by all. In an effort to talk the screeching scribe down a few rungs, would-be peacemaker michi unleashed the following bit of wisdom which is more than deserving of a post all its own . . .
Hey uh, Rebecca? Pause – please – Seriously. I feel (from my own experience, that you’re not speaking from a tone of rationality, but one of anger. I just need to say “stop for a second” and consider. I understand the ‘seeing red’ anger. I’ve been there, and that’s not the best time to hit the ‘post’ button. Sure know that I’ve written up documents and oh-so-wanted to put them online in my moment of anger…
I used to be an anti, and I still am rather liberal. And I know when the anger gets behind you, you see what happened at LAX and you think that these guys in this airport are of the same thread.
They really are not.
Just like I -used to- think that all Republicans had to answer for every little thing Rush Limbaugh said, and it’d make me seethe, (and I was wrong) – as Matt mentioned the only connecting factor is gun ownership.
I understand that you, yourself, couldn’t comprehend the want or need to own, see, touch or even be around a gun. I get that! And you don’t ever have to be a gun owner. You can keep them out of your household – but, the crux of it is this:
These guys were NOT going to hurt anyone. Really really. What broke my ‘reactive’ shell at first *was* going to the range with people I knew were “good people”. It forced me to reconcile in my head the disconnect I had between “only evil people own guns” and “wait, some of my good friends own guns.”
I’ve been on both sides of this line, and I can say from *my own experience deep in it*, the outrage is not from a rational place. These guys were not going to harm anyone; proven out by the fact that they didn’t harm anyone. The gun really is NOT the corrupting factor. They were not standing up for the LAX shooter – even though it can appear that way on its face.
The fact is, whenever a nut goes nuts, (because that’s what nuts do) – people come out of the woodwork to paint all of -us- as a clone of that nut. (such as the LAX shooter.) So people think of ways they can make a ‘political statement’ on that prompt, and I’m betting that that’s all these guys were really doing. “I’m going to go exercise these rights and show a few people – try to normalize it, and fight back (politically and symbolically!) on what people are saying we’re about; which we’re not.”
In short, they were probably trying to say, “See? It’s not the machine. I can carry a rifle through an airport and nobody gets hurt.”
THAT was likely their point, (even if you disagree with it!) NOT some kind of solidarity with the LAX shooter’s feelings about Janet Napolitano.
You’ve probably met gun owners, and you didn’t even know they were gun owners. You may have even met people who were concealed-carrying.
There are other political trappings that may be ‘generally common’ with gun owners that you may not agree with. (Chances are, I don’t agree with them either!) – But that’s not what this site is about. Yeah, the commentary devolved, but, when you enter a debate with a given tone, folks are gonna respond in kind. That’s the nature of discourse, and doubly so online.
Anyhow, to wrap this up: We aren’t LAX or Newtown or Aurora shooters. We *really* don’t like those guys. (I was at a movie theatre a mile away from the Aurora shooting on the night it happened. We got out of our movie to be greeted with a string of screaming police vehicles, and had to drive past the incident on the way home. I lived in Littleton during Columbine.) No really. We *REALLY* don’t like those guys because since we (as gun owners) are generally the only ones left standing after the event that share any commonality (the gun) – we get the “Explain yourself!!!!” invectives directed at *us*.
And really, the only answer we have is, “I got nothing, the guy was a nut” and with our ‘anti’ friends we even have to trot out the demeaning phrase “… and I’d never do anything like that.” Wow. As if that even needs to be said. :\
Anyways, Rebecca, I can’t say I’m perfect in explaining a point of view. That’s rarely done in a single post. It usually takes discourse.
But really, we aren’t evil. From an inside view I can assure you of that.