“Meanwhile,” Esquire scribe Charles P. Pearce writes, apropo of nothing, “out in the Heartland of Real America, violent fckwads are at play. Allegedly. The Lincoln Journal-Star tells us that some folks on a passenger train got very lucky that they weren’t involved in someone’s unfortunately ill-timed exercise of his Second Amendment rights.” A couple of points . . .
First, snob much? It’s bad enough that Esquire writers consider anything between the East and West coasts “flyover country.” Do they have to share this geography-based condescension?
Second, the case of Mr. Taylor Michael Wilson — a gun-owning white supremacist who kinda sorta tried to hijack an Amtrak train — has nothing to do with Americans’ right to keep and bear arms. A right that most decidedly does not cover the whole train hijacking thing.
Third, doesn’t the case of Mr. Taylor Michael Wilson — a gun-owning white supremacist who kinda sorta tried to hijack an Amtrak train — reflect the need for Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights to protect themselves against armed neo-Nazi scum?
Oh wait. You can’t carry on an Amtrak train. Hang on. Doesn’t that mean that Mr. Wilson was breaking a federal law by sticking a .38 in his waistband? So gun control laws don’t work? I’m so confused!
But not the eminently sarcastic Mr. Pearce. The Esquire blogger knows that “easy access” to guns is the problem . . .
These are the real lone wolves in this country. People living on the far fringes of The Grid, nursing private grudges, and finding meaning in lunatic causes they read about on the Intertoobz and discovering in themselves the whiskey courage it takes to bring your private self into the public space . . .
And guns, of course. We make sure they have plenty of guns because that’s how we all remain free.
Why I do believe that Mr. Pearce is a believer in collective guilt, rather than personal responsibility. Why am I not surprised?