Every time another gun massacre happens, the commissars of weapon-correctness announce that we should not politicize the tragedy.  They say this loud enough and often enough to shout us past the tragedy and into the next campaign where “taking away gun rights” equates to socialism, communism, and the coming of a one-world government that will force you to teach your disabled kids science,* and every politician of every party runs fast in the opposite direction.

Fuck that.

We need to politicize this most recent gun massacre because, in this country, “politicize” means “figure out wtf to do about.”  The opposite of “politicize” is not “debate respectfully” or “decide unanimously.”  It’s “sit around with our collective thumbs in our collective asses** and do nothing.”  So let’s politicize.  Let’s talk.  Argue even – it’s how things get decided in a democracy.

And when we talk, let’s talk about the fact that – as a friend pointed out on Facebook – you have to provide more information to buy Sudafed than to buy a gun.

********

* Or something like that.  I get my right wing conspiracies confused sometimes.  For example, do the same paranoid wingers who defeated the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on the grounds that the one-world government would force them to kill their disabled kids oppose gun control on the theory that the future one-world government might prevent someone from killing their disabled kids?  It’s so confusing!

** Not sure how this works in practice.