Tim Burchett Spoke The Truth About School Shootings
We aren’t gonna fix the insane asylum that is modern America
The mainstream media is apoplectic after a Tennessee congressman spoke an uncomfortable truth. Following the horrific Covenant School shooting, reporters hounded Republicans to get them to support gun control. Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett gave them the answer they definitely didn’t want.
“It’s a horrible, horrible situation,” Burchett told inquiring reporters. “And we’re not gonna fix it. Criminals are gonna be criminals. My daddy fought in the Second World War, fought in the Pacific, fought the Japanese, and he told me… ‘Buddy, if somebody wants to take you out and doesn’t mind losing their life, there’s not a whole heck of a lot you can do about it.’”
He shot down reporters’ demands that Congress do something about guns. “I don’t see any real role that we could do other than mess things up, honestly… I don’t think you’re going to stop the gun violence. I think you got to change people’s hearts.” When pressed on what he would do to protect his daughter in school, he says he homeschools her.
Burchett delivered one of the most honest statements from a politician in memory. Mass shootings usually bring out the worst comments from our leaders. Democrats rush to exploit the situation to push for gun control, no matter the details. The latest shooting was no exception . Republicans are put on the defensive. Liberals are ready to mock their statements about “thoughts and prayers” for the victims. Republicans sometimes suggest far-fetched ideas to get reporters off their backs. Most of these ideas are not good, such as arming teachers or turning schools into literal prisons.
Burchett dispensed with the bullshit and delivered the straight truth. He understands America is filled with deranged people who want to kill and there’s little to stop them. Access to guns does not inspire people to murder. The congressman knows banning AR-15s or giving AR-15s to teachers won’t stop it. It’s something embedded within the core of modern America. Our country is an open-air insane asylum and we can only mitigate the risks.
There are ideas that could probably work in a more sane society. A lot of right-wingers want to bring back insane asylums. This would be a good idea, if we could trust the people in charge of institutionalization. There’s little chance they would put away many of these mass shooters or other broken people. It’s more likely they would put away those who misgender than any trans person. It’s easy to imagine this would be a tool used against dissidents.
This is not to say it’s a terrible idea. I’m just skeptical it would have the effect we want in contemporary America. Its infeasibility reaffirms our current status as an insane asylum. Our leaders are just as crazy as the lunatics who should be locked up.
Burchett was wrong about one thing. We can reduce gun violence through law and order policies, but that’s not a popular idea with the “do something” crowd. Locking up criminals keeps the public safe. However, we are led by maniacs, and criminals roam free. These policies are pushed by the very same people outraged over Burchett’s honesty. It’s just another feature of insane asylum America.
Blaming guns for the Covenant School shooting overlooks the obvious feature of insane asylum America involved in this tragedy. Audrey Hale was a female-to-male transgender. This has created an awkward situation for the media. Trans folks are currently awarded immense status in the oppression hierarchy. They’re noble individuals who can do no wrong. Anything they might do wrong is due to transphobia. The bizarre coverage of the shooting illustrates this. Major outlets such as USA Today have worried about misgendering the shooter. Other outlets have tried to confirm the gender identity of the biological woman. Many reporters have tried to blame the shooting on Tennessee’s recent laws banning gender indoctrination and trans surgery for kids. Some reports blamed the shooter’s conservative family for not accepting her gender identity. The media fretted about the release of the shooter’s manifesto and how it might harm the LGBT community. And, of course, there are articles on how the real victims of the shooting may be trans people in the Volunteer State.
Anyone on Twitter, or really the internet in general, knows trans accounts fedpoast more than any other. You will see direct threats all the time. Trans accounts feel free to discuss doing terrorism and gruesomely murdering their enemies. Studies show transgender youth are at the highest risk of violent radicalization on the internet. There’s even a “Trans Day of Vengeance” planned for this weekend. Considering the amount of hysteria over phantom right-wing violence, it’s a little curious no one asks domestic trans extremism. But it’s not that surprising. Left-wing violence is tolerated and sometimes even encouraged. On the day of the shooting, the press secretary for Arizona governor tweeted out a gif about using guns against transphobes. Trans violence is a-ok to them.
It shouldn’t be a surprise America has so many mass shootings when you look at social trends. Atomization is a fact of life, with millions of people living their lives isolated from others. People get crazy ideas into their head from the internet. We suffer from an epidemic of mental illness and drug abuse. There’s a lot of messed up people in this country, and they have no institutions, social pressures, or friends to convince them to not do something horrible.
Liberals want us to believe that ensuring these people won’t have AR-15s will magically convince them to be well-adjusted people. If they didn’t have “assault rifles,” they would find another way to do harm. The gun didn’t possess Audrey Hale to kill. Her own deranged thoughts did so.
There is no concrete solution to this problem. Anything our lawmakers would propose would likely restrict our rights or make things worse. The solution lies in changing American life to be less like that of an insane asylum. There’s not a policy program for that. Like Rep. Burchett said, it’s about changing hearts–and that’s going to take a long time to do.
The Tennessee congressman deserves praise for his honest and accurate statement. It’s rare for a politician to say the truth the public doesn’t want to hear. Burchett provides an example for other Republicans to follow. Congress can’t be expected to solve atomization and the mental health crisis. A gun ban won’t fix it–only a social revival will.
The West has reached levels of fucked-upness previously never thought possible.
Good article!
It is probably true that if we literally banned all guns, like all liberals want but won't say out loud, gun violence would practically vanish over time. This is evidenced by the fact that a large portion of gun violence in Mexico involves American-made guns which were smuggled over. That's not to argue that we should ban guns, of course. Gun culture is a uniquely American institution that we should be proud of and defend. All you have to do to get gun violence under control, like you said, is to get them out of the hands of the mentally ill like Antifa and trans people and away from who have a proven history of violence. That should be the gun platform the Republican Party should run on.