Tom Junod, at Esquire, offers a modest proposal:
… Republicans have won the gun-control battle. They have made many Americans so suspicious of their own government that many Americans have come to believe that the only thing that stands between them and tyranny is the rifle in their closet and the .38 in their dresser drawer. Republicans have made Americans understand that the explicit promise of the First Amendment exists because of the implicit threat of the Second, and that while the rights to privacy and health care are not named in the Constitution, the right to keep and bear arms damned well is. Most importantly, Republicans have joined forces with the National Rifle Association to enshrine the slippery slope as the prevailing logic of public policy in the matter of firearms — to convince Americans that taking the 100-round mags from the gun shows is but the first step to taking the derringers from their wives’ nightstands.
As such, the Republican Party now has the kind of historic opportunity that only victors enjoy. They have the opportunity to declare victory while at the same time extending a hand to the losers; to reach across the aisle and to relieve their Democratic counterparts of the terrible responsibility of actually doing something in the wake of national tragedies; to inject some realism into the gun debate while dealing with it on an entirely symbolic level; and most of all, to have something to offer grieving families beyond empty words, ineffectual promises, and hypocritical bromides:
A medal.
Yes, that’s right, a medal. At this year’s convention in Tampa, I think Mitt Romney should end the summer of mass shootings by accepting his party’s nomination with a promise that, if elected, he will create the most important civilian medal since President John Fitzgerald Kennedy created the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963. This one, however, wouldn’t go to artists, musicians, writers, entrepreneurs, and other First Amendment types. It would go to the families of those killed by gun violence, to let them know that they are no less vital to the protection of American freedom than the families of soldiers killed in foreign wars, and that their sacrifices have not been in vain. The medal would be called the Bearing the Cost of Freedom Medal, although, because it would be loosely modeled after the Purple Heart and would come with a black ribbon suitable for mourning, it could also be called the Black Heart…
Stooleo
Wow, words fail.
Raven
Find The Cost Of Freedom. Gilmour, Crosby , Nash
Keith
And instead of George Washington, it would have one of those Olympic Mitt cartoons with the big chin.
PeakVT
Junod seems tense. Maybe he should go down to the range and squeeze off a couple hundred rounds to clear his mind.
…many Americans have come to believe that the only thing that stands between them and tyranny is the rifle in their closet and the .38 in their dresser drawer.
Not that gun nuts are the brightest lot, but it’s pretty damn obvious that the federal government – and most state governments, for that matter – can kill any number of “patriots” and their pea shooters any time it wants. This isn’t the 1780s, when citizens had muskets and the government had … more muskets.
japa21
Yes, I could see Romney doing this without ever seeing the irony in the words.
Chyron HR
More like Find the Cost of… oh, never mind.
JR
“For Those Cut Down in a Hail of Liberty”
LanceThruster
1st Lt. Mittens Minderbinder: Nately died a heroic man, Yossarian. He had Black Heart medal.
Yossarian: What difference does that make? He’s dead.
1st Lt. Mittens Minderbinder: Then his family will get it.
Yossarian: He didn’t have time to have a family.
1st Lt. Mittens Minderbinder: Then his parents will get it.
Yossarian: Will they still even want it, they’re NRA?
1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder: Then they’ll understand.
danimal
The acid contained in that article could make a body disappear in mere seconds.
Which is why I loved it, if you can love anything surrounding the gun issue these days.
mai naem
Nothing is going to happen unless some major beloved right wing politician is shot and killed. And, no, some security guard at some right wing outfit doesn’t count. It has to be a president or big time senator or retired leader that Americans actually recognize the name of.
LanceThruster
@JR:
Yossarian: He was very old.
Luciana: But he was a boy.
Yossarian: Well, he died. You don’t get any older than that.
LanceThruster
@Keith:
And with “Oh, shoot!” or “Mr. Big Shot” or “Freedom of Free Fire Zone” as the caption.
andy
One effective way I’ve found, trolling gun enthusiasts, that really gets under their skins is to ask them when the NRA will work up some postcard campaigns to thank all the victims of those mass shootings.
They like to talk about all the Patriots who died for their Freedoms, with symbolic scenes in their heads showing guys in tricorn hats marching, or Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima, but never scenes of gutshot teenage girls trying to drag themselves out of the line of fire. Because sure as fuck, all those victims of formerly Law Abiding Gun-owners die for their “freedoms” too. I guess those aren’t the symbols they’ve been looking for…
LanceThruster
@Raven:
Drinkin’ beer in a cabaret And I was havin’ fun!
Until one night she caught me right, And now I’m on the run
Lay that pistol down Babe, Lay that pistol down,
Pistol Packin’ Mama, Lay that pistol down.
She kicked out my windshield, She hit me over the head,
She cussed and cried, and said I lied, And I wished that I was dead.
Lay that pistol down Babe, Lay that pistol down,
Pistol Packin’ Mama, Lay that pistol down.
Drinkin’ beer in a cabaret, And dancing with a blonde,
Until one night she shot out the light, Bang! That blonde was gone.
Lay that pistol down Babe, Lay that pistol down,
Pistol Packin’ Mama, Lay that pistol down.
I’ll see you every night Babe, I’ll woo you every day,
I’ll be your regular Daddy, If you’ll put that gun away.
Lay that pistol down Babe, Lay that pistol down,
Pistol Packin’ Mama, Lay that pistol down.
Lay that pistol down Babe, Lay that pistol down,
Pistol Packin’ Mama, Lay that pistol down.
Now down there was old Al Dexter, He always had his fun,
But with some lead. she shot him dead, His Honkin’ days are done.
burnspbesq
The Right has made irony impossible.
Bokonon
@mai naem:
I don’t agree. Even if a beloved right wing poitician gets killed in gun violence, that will NOT start the nation down the path towards a real discussion on gun control. I mean, did it work that way when George Wallace got shot?
What it WOULD do is spawn virulent conspiracy theories. And it would make the right wing double down on their existing claim that gun ownership alone (and unfettered access to large ammunition magazines) prevents tyrany.
Some of the bolder thinkers might suggest – just as a thought exercise, of course – that maybe some retribution is in order against the left wingers that they blame for the shooting.
And then some lone wolf will pick up a rifle …
Mnemosyne
Let’s have a little honesty here, shall we?
As I said in another thread on a different subject, the message that the Republicans have been broadcasting since at least 1968 is, “The government won’t protect you, so you’d better protect yourself.” That was about Social Security, but it applies here, too — the Republicans tell their constituents that the government’s not going to help them in an emergency, so they’d better have the means to protect themselves. If they don’t, too bad, so sad, should have planned better.
Davis X. Machina
@burnspbesq: Wasn’t it JKF who told us that the same people who make irony impossible will make hyperbole inevitable?
maya
Shouldn’t it be the American Crosshairs Medal? And, the latest model Smith & Wesson named after the recipient would be a nice touch.
SFAW
@maya:
I didn’t realize that Smith & Wesson turned out so many new models in a year.
ETA: Maybe if they named the model after the Shooter, not the Shootees? I think that would add an extra-special touch for the next of kin who receive the Medal(s).
Patricia Kayden
I am assuming that Junod’s article was all in jest. Too ridiculous to contemplate.
Ruckus
@Patricia Kayden:
In jest? In jest you say!
The problem is it would be nice if an article like that could have been in jest. That it is a sad but realistic commentary on our american lives takes it right out of the jest side of the ledger.
? Martin
There’s a certain appeal to the proposal though. Not as written but an official recognition of American lives lost to causes the government feels should be preventable. War, terrorism, gun violence, domestic violence, cancers, AIDS, drunk driving, west nile this year, etc.
Nothing specific about victims, rather a broad illustration to raise awareness and speak specifically to efforts to address these things. Too many lives lost to things that just vanish from our memory.
Jay in Oregon
@andy:
I said it in the other thread; we need to hand out bumper stickers that say “The NRA: Sacrificing innocent people for your freedoms since 1871.”
piratedan
@maya: ahem…. that would be the “surveyors symbol” medal, per Sarah Said So