Recently, the teenage daughter of a member of Congress got her first vehicle. The proud parents posted on social media a family photo of them standing around the vehicle, with a huge red bow atop the new car, symbolizing an early Christmas present.
Howls of outrage from the left were immediate. How dare they be so insensitive, releasing such a photo so soon after the tragedy in which someone ran over and killed six people at a parade in Waukesha, Wis.? How shameless and tone-deaf could someone be to openly mock the victims of that senseless violence? How could a prominent elected official show such a lack of respect?
What, you're saying that this event didn't happen? No one got their knickers in a twist over a picture of a family with a car? And it would be ridiculous if anyone did get upset about it?
Well, you're right. It didn't happen. There was no family picture of a U.S. representative's kid with a new car. And there was no fictional outrage about this fictional event. But something that did happen was just as nonsensical as this hypothetical example would have been. Protests are continuing over Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie's photo with members of his family holding guns while standing around a Christmas tree. They think that Massie's photo is somehow insulting to the victims of the recent Oxford, Mich. school shooting.
In fact, substitute "Wisconsin parade" for "Michigan school," "car" for "gun," and "American Automobile Association" for "National Rifle Association" and see how utterly illogical and asinine it sounds when discussing the tragedy that happened in Michigan.
Guns, like cars, are inanimate objects. They're incapable of acting on their own. They're neutral devices. They are tools that can be used for good or bad purposes, depending on the intent of the user.
There was nothing insensitive or disrespectful about Massie's photo. It had nothing to do with what happened in Michigan. His picture has exactly the same connection to that event as a car ad on television has to what happened in Wisconsin.
This is part of the problem we have today. Intellectual honesty is sorely lacking among those of a certain political viewpoint. If you point out the inconsistencies in their arguments, they accuse you of deflecting, "whataboutism," or any of several other scary-sounding acts to try to escape their own lack of reasoning.
The same people who complain about Donald Trump's lecherous behavior with women voted not only for Bill Clinton twice, but for the woman who accepted and enabled his behavior for her own political means. Those who complained about Matt Bevin being a "carpetbagger" voted for Brereton Jones for Kentucky governor in 1992. They criticize those who voted against certifying the 2020 Electoral College results using perfectly valid legal and constitutional procedures, or those who participated in a peaceful First Amendment-protected political rally and protest, and lump them into the same category as the lawbreakers who illegally entered the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Truth is, nothing Massie says or does is OK with his critics. His independent streak gets him scorn not only from liberals, but fellow GOP members as well. It's not uncommon to hear complaints about him from establishment Republicans, conservative tea party adherents, Trump-supporting populists, or other subgroups on the right, depending on the topic. And he certainly doesn't shy away or back down from the notoriety. If he's feeling especially froggy, he'll mark his social media posts with the #SassyWithMassie hashtag. He knows the backlash will be coming, and he seems to relish it.
But while Massie's Christmas greeting photo is the specific incident that's called attention to this topic, it's not the main subject of this treatise. The usual gun control arguments were being made by the expected voices before the young shooter's parents had even been arrested for their role in the crime.
A gun did not cause these deaths, just as a car was not responsible for the deaths in Wisconsin. The blame in Michigan lies in many places: obviously the student, but also his parents who provided him the gun and missed so many warning signs, and the school that failed to adequately remove the threat other than asking the parents to take him home.
Normal life can't come to a stop anytime there's a tragedy, even a preventable one. No one asked hunters or target shooters to not fire their weapons for a period of time after the Michigan shooting. Society didn't demand that vehicle ads be taken off the air, parades be canceled, or car traffic come to a stop for a designated mourning period after the Wisconsin parade. If we view every event through the lens of what's been in the news recently, then society will grind to a halt because everything can be associated with some not-so-pleasant event if you stretch it hard enough. If there's been a high-profile drowning, would it be improper for a politician to post photos of their children swimming? If there's a plane crash, is it in bad taste to take a picture of an airplane you're boarding? At what point does the nuttery end?
Tom Massie, and millions of other Americans, believe in the Second Amendment and celebrate the right to keep and bear arms as an essential part of America's past, present, and future. To link his actions in any way to the Michigan shooting is just more ridiculousness.
