We have to spend a few minutes talking about something related to guns. Let's start with a quote from a post at AlterNet:Imagine a counter demonstration to a Boston Marathon vigil. Imagine a counter demonstration to a Oklahoma tornado or Hurricane Sandy vigil. Ridiculing and mocking someone else's loss is so heinous and emotionally abusive, legislation was passed last year to keep protests 300 feet away from military funerals.That legislation, of course, was inspired by the antics of the Westboro Baptist Church.
But the fact is, nothing is too low for the gun nuts.
On Friday, July 20, Aurora, Colorado held a commemoration of the Aurora theater massacre, which occurred exactly one year earlier when James Holmes, dressed for combat and carrying smoke grenades, a 12-gauge shotgun, an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle with a 100-round drum, and a .22 pistol, entered the Century 16 multiplex and began shooting. When he stopped, there were 12 people dead and 58 more shot.
In addition to that commemoration, the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns held a separate commemoration in a city park, which began with families of shooting victims from Aurora, Columbine, and Newtown talking about their loss before several speakers began reciting the names of people killed by gun violence - not only of those killed and wounded in Aurora but also of those of the thousands of victims of gun violence across the country. The reading went on for 11 hours until the last speaker, Stephen Barton, one of the wounded in Aurora, ended at 12:38am, the time the first shots rang out one year earlier.
So a peaceful, emotional vigil to remind people of the human cost of gun violence.
Which of course could not be tolerated by the gun nuts.
So the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners announced it was going to counter-protest what it called New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's "radical east coast anti-gun agenda" and how it "is not supported by Coloradans,” a statement made on the group's behalf by a spokeswoman for the National Association for Gun Rights, which is headquartered in the east cost state of Virginia.
That is, the group was going to counter-protest, or more accurately protest, a memorial to the dead. Because of course all those dead had nothing to do with guns. Nothing at all. And if James Holmes had been armed with popcorn balls and darts, he would have been just as dangerous.Nothing is too low for these people in their addiction to their guns.
On the upside, pictures taken by a supporter of the gun nuts, one of which is to the right, showed their turnout to be about 10. Maybe they aren't as representative of all the people of Colorado as they like the imagine.
Sources:
http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/martharosenberg/gun-lovers-will-torment-bereaved-colorado-memorial-service
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/20/colorado-aurora-shootings_n_3627813.html
http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/20/aurora-theater-shooting-memorial-attracts-strange-bedfellows/#ixzz2ZzjlK7m5
http://www.theblogmocracy.com/2013/07/20/aurora-no-more-names-protest/
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