What Could Possibly Go Wrong When Gun Nuts Hold A Fake Mass Shooting?

I don’t like guns; I don’t own a gun. I cannot think of a situation in my life that would make me buy a gun.

I have, however, once in my life, shot a gun; when I was a wee lad, we were visiting friends and went skeet shooting. I didn’t much care for it and haven’t picked up a gun since then, but …

If people choose to own a gun because they feel they need it for protection, I say that’s their right. If people own a gun because they like to hunt, I say that’s their right. But why, why, does anyone need an assault weapon? A machine gun? Any weapon that fires dozens and dozens of round per minute and was created solely for the purposes of killing someone?

That I don’t understand. And I don’t understand this either: gun rights groups are converging on the University of Texas campus to hold a “mock” mass shooting.

Yup; mock. Fake. Not real. Just for fun let’s pretend that someone went crazy and opened fire on a college campus; for kicks. What a great way to spend an afternoon: murder and mayhem.

And the reason given for this asinine display — mass shootings are fun, y’all—comes from one Matthew Short, spokesman for the gun rights groups Come and Take It Texas:

“We love freedom and we’re trying to make more freedom.”

More freedom; with guns.

Apparently Short and his ilk haven’t read the statistics that say that Americans have suffered more mass shootings this year than days have passed this year. But that’s not enough for gun-nuts; they need a mass shooting simulation because nothing says freedom like bloodshed.

Billed as a “crisis performance event”, the fake mass shooting will include an entire array of simulated effects, including guns, gunfire, blood, victims, and “good guys” with guns, and will be preceded by gun nuts walking though the city of Austin with loaded weapons.

Naturally, when asked if these events were in bad taste, Short said:

“Not at all. People were able to be murdered because no one was armed.”

Yes, he believes that the way to fight violence is with more violence; just like the way to stop the kid on the playground from throwing rocks at other kids is to give all the kids rocks.

And let’s not take too much time thinking about a lunatic who might think that a staged mass shooting is the perfect place to start shooting; or the lunatic who looks at this madness as a classroom, a how-to, on mass murder.

And if that happens, if just one person is shot at this event, or someone uses this event as a jump off for their own act of violence, then maybe people like Matthew Short should be held accountable.

Guns kill people; people with guns kill people. Giving more people more guns is not the solution.

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