In the wake of continued mass shootings, gun laws have become an increasingly contentious issue for many Americans.
To many, the solution to mass shootings seems easy — ban assault rifles. Raise the age to purchase a gun. Require background checks for anyone looking to buy a gun.
However, others feel that "blaming guns" is the wrong answer.* Instead, they're bending over backward to blame mass shootings on any number of other things. Here are just a few of the moronic comments they've made!
*I'm sure this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that many of them receive money from the NRA.
1. ABORTION RIGHTS: When Missouri representative Billy Long was asked if there was any desire to look at doing things differently when it came to guns, he replied, "No one has been able to come up with any kind of suggestion that would have helped in any of these situations" and that "unfortunately, they're trying to blame inanimate objects for all of these tragedies."
He then continued, "When I was growing up in Springfield, you had one or two murders a year. Now, we have two, three, four a week in Springfield, Missouri, so something has happened to our society, and I go back to abortion. When we decided it was OK to murder kids in their mother's wombs, life has no value to a lot of these folks."
Listen to his words here:
Rep. Billy Long (R-MO) blames gun violence on abortion: "Something has happened to our society. I go back to abortion, when we decided it was okay to murder kids in their mothers' wombs. Life has no value to a lot of these folks."
2. WEED: Fox News host Tucker Carlson recently blamed mass shootings on the legalization of weed. “They are high on government-endorsed weed," Carlson said of mass shooters. "‘Smoke some more, it’s good for you...’” he seemed to imply the government says.
3. WOMEN IN GENERAL: Carlson also said young men commit mass shootings because "the authorities in their lives ― mostly women ― never stops lecturing them about their so-called privilege.”
Tucker Carlson is blaming mass shootings on women "lecturing" men
Oh, and he also blamed porn.
4. SPECIFICALLY, WORKING WOMEN: Former New Hampshire Sen. Jim Rubens blamed mass shootings on the rise in working women in a 2009 blog post, and doubled down on the claim during his 2014 run for Senate.
5. MEDICATION: Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene blamed mass shootings on medication, and said a "return to God" would solve the issue.
TRANSGENDER RIGHTS: Taylor Greene also referenced "being raised in an American Godless culture that hates masculinity, demeans men, puts girls or trans above boys or turns boys into girls, [and] teaches fleshly desires over responsibility/work" as contributing to a "deadly recipe for mass murder."
6. DRAG QUEENS and GAY MARRIAGE: Former Ohio lawmaker Candice Keller blamed shootings on a number of things, including (but not limited to): drag queens, gay marriage, weed, open borders, and professional athletes who take a knee during the national anthem. Oh, and "snowflakes."
Ohio Rep. Candice Keller blamed gay marriage, marijuana, open borders, "drag queen advocates," and more for the recent mass shootings. https://t.co/4HOx85Xj7V
When questioned on the now-deleted Facebook post, Keller acknowledged she'd posted something to her personal Facebook page, but when the statements were read aloud to her, she said only that it sounded like part of her posting and that she didn't know if it had been altered.
7. THE COVID-19 VACCINE: Patrick J. Brosnan, a retired NYPD detective and security analyst for many national news networks, said on Fox News that vaccinations would cause mass shootings.
Listen to the clip here:
This seems like a weird takeaway from the San Jose mass shooting. Retired NYPD detective Pat Brosnan on Fox News: "Once covid starts to lift, these cowardly shooters will come out exactly in tandem with the number of vaccinations. You can be sure they probably got vaccinated."
8. SMARTPHONES: Texas Rep. Pat Fallon pointed out last month that guns have "always" been readily available, but that mass shootings are mostly a modern phenomenon. “So what’s changed in the last 50 years?" he asked.
“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," Fallon said.
Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) blamed mass shootings on "the overuse of these dang smartphones."
Fallon makes some great points, as nothing else at all has changed in the last 50 years. Like the creation of civilian models of military-style rifles, Congress banning the CDC from doing any research that could be used to “advocate or promote gun control,” the rise in power (and lobbying) of the NRA, or the expiration of the federal assault weapons ban. Those definitely didn't happen in the last 50 years. Oh, or the rise of disinformation online, the growth of the far-right, and the pro-gun propaganda from Republican politicians. Or the overall rise in gun sales and ownership.
9. MEN LOOKING AT WOMEN ON SOCIAL MEDIA(??): Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker suggested in May that we should put more money toward the “mental health field,” suggesting a department be created to "look at young men that's looking at women that's looking on social media."
Herschel Walker's solution to school shootings involves "a department that can look at young men that's looking at women that's looking at social media."
When asked about new gun laws after the Uvalde shooting, Walker said, "What I like to do is see it and everything and stuff.” So, uh....yeah. I can't even argue against this one since I don't know exactly what he was saying.
10. "GODLESSNESS": After the El Paso and Dayton shootings, former Arkansas governor (and 2016 presidential hopeful) Mike Huckabee said the common denominator of shootings were not guns, but "hate inside the heart," a "loss of morality," and "disconnecting from a God who values all people."
11. DECLINING CHURCH ATTENDANCE: Just days after the Uvalde shooting, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz gave a speech at the NRA convention and similarly blamed shootings on a lack of religion, among other things. "Tragedies like the events of this week are a mirror forcing us to ask hard questions, demanding that we see where our culture is failing. Looking at broken families, absent fathers, declining church attendance, social media bullying, violent online content, desensitizing the act of murder in video games, chronic isolation, prescription drug and opioid abuse, and their collective effects on the psyche of young Americans," Cruz said.
12. VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES: Like Cruz, former president Trump also blamed shootings on video games. “We must stop the glorification of violence in our society,” he said in the wake of two mass shootings in one weekend in 2019. “This includes the gruesome and grisly video games that are now commonplace."
13. CRITICAL RACE THEORY: Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson blamed shootings on "wokeness" and critical race theory. “We stopped teaching values in so many of our schools. Now we’re teaching wokeness,” Johnson said in the wake of the Uvalde shooting. “We’re indoctrinating our children with things like CRT, telling, you know, some children they’re not equal to others and they’re the cause of other people’s problems.”
14. GUN REGULATIONS: Former Pennsylvania Sen. and presidential hopeful Rick Santorum blamed the El Paso shooting on the fact that unarmed people couldn't defend themselves, calling the Walmart shoppers "soft targets" that tempted a shooter.
15. FATHERLESSNESS: Utah Sen. Mike Lee suggested that not having a father was to blame for shootings. "Why is our culture suddenly producing so many young men who want to murder innocent people?" Lee asked, saying, "it raises questions like, could fatherlessness, the breakdown of families, isolation from civil society, or the glorification of violence be contributing factors?"
16. LIBERAL TEACHERS: Heather Ann Sprague, a Republican candidate for the Maine House of Representatives, blamed the Uvalde shooting on "liberal teachers," seemingly in reference to a false claim that the Uvalde shooter was transgender.
“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 a lot 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 posted on Facebook.
17. SANCTUARY CITIES: Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe blamed shootings (like the Las Vegas shooting) on a culture of lawlessness created by the existence of sanctuary cities — where local law enforcements limit how much they'll enforce immigration law in their city.
18. BLACK PEOPLE: Arizona Senate candidate Blake Marsters blamed gun violence and shootings in the US in general on Black people. "It's gangs. It's people in Chicago, St. Louis shooting each other. Very often, you know, Black people, frankly. And the Democrats don't want to do anything about that."
19. And finally, ZOMBIES: Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin blamed shootings on violent television — specifically with zombies. “What’s the most popular topic that seems to be in every cable television network? Television shows are all about, what? Zombies! I don’t get it … now it's all about zombies. Which is what we are. We celebrate death."
“When a culture is surrounded by, inundated by, rewards things that celebrate death, whether it is zombies in television shows, the number of abortions…there’s a thousand justifications for why we do this," Bevin said.
