It’s the result of desensitization, not insensitivity
After seven straight years of seeing the Prime Minister’s name alongside depictions of nooses, some with claims of “treason”, some “just because”, not to mention the litany of “FUCK Trudeau” flags — and, for reasons I cannot fathom, vehicles plastered with what I assume to be paint-lifting decals promoting the same — politicians who blame the Prime Minister for global market shifts, global inflation, provincial health policy, and even another country’s border policies, would like “progressive politicians” to tone down the rhetoric.
This, even after a man drove his firearm-packed vehicle through the gates at Rideau Hall in an attempt to "make a citizen’s arrest” of a progressive Prime Minister — which obviously explains all the guns — and that time the same Prime Minister has had to wear a Kevlar vest at an event, or had to cancel an appearance due to safety concerns, and a progressive Alberta Premier received the most credible threats to her safety of any provincial leader in the province’s history — the problem is “progressive politicians”.
Because, you see, in the United States of America, where on average more than 50 people are killed by firearms every single day, a person who was once called “reprehensible” and “America’s Hitler” by the man he recently chose as his running mate, was shot at, grazed, two others were critically injured, and a fourth person died.
Somewhere, in multiple locations across that “great” nation, more people were probably victims of gun violence that day as well.
It was a Saturday.
In addition to offering the standard “thoughts and prayers”, champions of the Second Amendment decided that, this time, there actually was something more that could be done to try and end the daily threat of violence against Americans: “the left” could refrain from calling their opponent’s fever dreams “dangerous”.
“The left” is to blame, you know, because this shooting was different than the tens of thousands of Americans who have their lives cut short by gun violence each year: the target wasn’t a six-year old child, or a family attending a parade, no — this time, the target was, ostensibly, former President and current Presidential candidate Donald Trump, and not the other three people who were shot by a lone gunman with an AR-15 style rifle.
Reports say the gunman was a registered Republican and there were “MAGA” (Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan) signs on the lawn at his parent’s home, where he lived. He had been a member of a long-range gun club for at least the last year, and the gun he used was purchased legally by his father, 11 years prior, when the would-be gunman was around nine years old. He excelled at mathematics, and worked in the kitchen at a local nursing home. Everyone who knew him was shocked.
We don’t know why the gunman allegedly tried to kill Donald Trump; he didn’t leave a note or post his plans on social media, and he was shot and killed on scene, so he is unable to speak to it now.
We may never get a satisfactory answer for the gunman’s motivations, and even if law enforcement does uncover something — as in, a detailed, thoughtful or unhinged, explanation in his own hand as to his personal reasoning for the attempt — those reasons are unlikely to be compelling to a majority of people who wouldn’t consider taking such action in the first place.
Despite the fact that more than 20,000 people point a gun at and kill their fellow Americans each year, a majority of people don’t.
Even so, this year, and probably the next, and the next, tens of thousands more Americans will be asking why someone chose to kill someone they knew, cared for, admired, or supported in some way, too.
I’ll admit that due to the fact that the number one cause of death for American children is being a victim of gun violence, and a majority of the country’s citizens have steadfastly refused to support any attempt to do anything about it, I feel pretty desensitized by it all.
Day after day, year after year; as certain as the world will keep turning, Americans will continue to be victimized at home, school, work, at concerts, the grocery store, the local bar, or just walking down the street.
Because a would-be killer’s right to have that gun is more important than every other citizen’s security.
The reality is that I’ve tried and I simply haven’t been able to convince myself that this particular incident is somehow “special”, even if it was allegedly an attempt to kill a presidential candidate.
I fully expected this to happen to President Obama. I think there’s a greater than average chance someone might try to assassinate Preside Biden now because, you know, the alleged assassination attempt of Donald Trump was due to the language from “progressive politicians”.
It wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
From the outside looking in, it’s just another day in America to me.
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Many are willing to ignore Danielle Smith’s more extreme policy decisions be cause they’ve “always voted conservative”. It should be clear by now that she should be judged by the company she keeps and her parroting of the most cynical and repulsive Republican talking points. She suggested that Tucker Carlson should “put Guilbeault in his crosshairs”. Yet it’s the progressives who are responsible for violence. This transparent nonsense should disgust more Albertans than it actually does. We deserve better that this awful path she’s leading us down.