Mass hysteria of the right
by David Atkins
Isn’t it time we started asking if these people might be clinically ill?
A joint coalition of gun lobbyists are declaring Dec. 14, 2013 — the one-year anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Conn. — “Guns Saves Lives Day.”
The Second Amendment Foundation, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and DefendGunRights.com announced yesterday that they will be organizing events in all 50 states on Dec. 14 to counteract the anticipated anti-gun activism on the anniversary of the mass shooting that killed 26 people.
In addition to these organized events, GunsSaveLivesDay.com includes a petition calling for Congress to cease and desist all efforts to disarm Americans, and donation page to “help protect and support gun rights.”
In a press release posted online yesterday, the sponsors said their mission “is to assure them our groups are working day and night to thwart government gun-grabbers at every opportunity. We are going to show America that there is a good side to guns.”
Gun control organization Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America immediately responded to the gun lobby’s plans:
“To hold a gun-glorifying event on Dec. 14, a day when America will remember the slaughter of 26 innocent Americans, including teachers and first-grade students, can be deemed nothing less than abject evil.”
The most charitable explanation I can give for all of this behavior–from these people to Ted Cruz to the rest–is the sense that their world is disappearing. America is no longer as dominant as it once was, men aren’t as dominant as they once were, whites aren’t as dominant as they once were, Christians and believers in general aren’t as dominant as they once were. Sure, the American rich white Christian male still has social hegemony, but these people can feel it slipping away. It scares them half to death, and rage-filled, destructive, wildly inappropriate tantrums are the typical reaction.
On many levels we have moved past politics as usual. This is a collective hysteria among millions of terrified people that will get far worse before it runs its course.
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