Let's Hear it for the Kids

Thirty years ago I held a much different position on assault weapon ownership than I do now. Back in the 1980's when I was in my early twenties, my chief desire was to complete my manhood by purchasing some awesome weapon worthy of the action movie heroes of that time. Flush with army enlistment bonus cash, it didn't take me long to fulfilled that idiotic wish. Funny thing, after wasting a nice chunk of change on ammo, I found an assault weapon was a cumbersome possession and rather boring.

The Finnish made Valmet assault rifle I bought in 1986 was eventually sold to finance my purchase of scuba gear sometime around 1990. And while I did retain a live-and-let-live attitude to others still engrossed in their mutated dreams of assault weapon glory, they did so without me hanging around. Still though, my position during the 1990's was that if a person wanted to own an assault weapon my interpretation of the Second Amendment at that time said that was their right.

The various mass shootings that followed didn't really shake my position. The tipping point came from a conversation with an individual who had literally wrapped his entire identity and self worth into the ownership of his various assault weapons. This conversation occurred before the Lord of the Rings movies came out but it was like talking to the creature Gollum. About the only things this person didn't do as we talked was whisper the word “precious” as he intimately stroked his favorite AR. Throwing a little more kindling on my judgmental fire, no, this particular individual never served in the military.

But it was the 2012 shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary school that shook me to my core. Twenty little kids died horrific deaths because a mentally disturbed man, Adam Lanza, was able to get his hands on his mom's AR-15 and other weapons. Excuse me for this thoughtless comment, but I can't decided if that woman, Nancy Lanza, got what she deserved by being her son's first victim that day or that maybe she got off easy by being able to avoid responsibility for the deaths of those kids.

In a testament to the deranged nature of individuals lost to the obscene nature of what has come to be called “gun culture”, it wasn't long after the Sandy Hook shooting that the parents of those dead kids began having to suffer through a grotesque smear campaign. Truly sick individuals, backed by certain pro-gun organizations, began spreading propaganda that the shooting never happened. That Sandy Hook was a “false flag” operation whose goal was to take the Precious from all those people who believed that evil Federal government commies were on the verge of imposing a tyrannical regime.

After what seems like an endless string of mass shootings, these same pro-gun organizations have cowed nearly all our elected leaders from taking even the smallest steps to avoid these massacres. They propose we turn our schools into prisons and our society into their fantasy version of the old wild west or life on the frontier in colonial America. What I find extremely funny, in my usual dark sense of humor is that when I owned my Valmet assault rifle, most people looked at me like I was crazy for possessing such a monstrous white elephant. Now, gun manufacturers and the culture in general have promoted those weapons to the point they are now accepted as something akin to normal for civilians to own.

This is where I make my ubiquitous statement that unlike most of the chickenhawks and armchair general whining about liberals like me, I spent a total of twenty-one years serving in the active army and National Guard. So anyone upset with my position really needs to kiss my pale white ass. The alternative being that such individuals who absolutely love guns find some courage and go to the nearest Armed Forced recruiting office. And if you have served but still feel an unhealthy affinity for weapons that are designed to shred human tissue more than outright kill, seek counseling. 

The situation might be a little different now since the shooting at the Stoneman Douglas High School. The kids that survived that massacre have found their voice and appear to have started a movement that will not be scared into silence by the even the Big Boy of the pro-gun group. Personally, I do not hold any real idea that the Stoneman Douglas kids can make a huge difference. If the murder of twenty kids between six and seven years old didn't shock the American public and the politicians into action, I have a hard time seeing how the deaths of teenagers will be any different.

Where things could be different this time is if the Stoneman Douglas kids can truly mobilize their contemporaries to vote while shaming their elders into action. I saw several of the Stoneman Douglas kids speak on television yesterday. They are articulate and clearly driven by the justice of their cause. That in itself isn't much to go on, but enough to have me entertain a small spark of hope.

A battle I choose not to fight

"Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing."
Phyllis Diller

"Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory: (1) He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight..."
Sun Tzu

It has been a while since I mentioned my son, Darth Spoilboy. All is well, for a fifteen year-old boy, his life right now revolves around his soul consuming desire for his restricted drivers license which he will be able to test for in a little over a month. Life with him is a constant dialog over when and what car we will eventually buy for him and how he will go all out helping his parents. Promises abound with Darth Spoilboy guaranteeing how he will gladly assist us in things requiring a car and more normal things around the house. 

Since we are not a rich family by any means any car we purchase for his use will be a something very basic and hopefully reliable. This goes counter to the various sports cars that idly drift in and out of his fantasies. As for his current eagerness in helping his parents both Dragonwife and I have no illusions that it will last. We fully expect him to artfully forget all the things he said he would help us with like driving Miss Wiggles to her gymnastic practices, making runs to the grocery store, and the very basic thing of simply keeping up with cleaning his room.

Some progress has been made on that front, on a previous post I remarked how I once found a fossilized McDonalds double cheeseburger underneath his bed and how it was so hard I believe it would beat depleted uranium as an antitank weapon. The worst thing lately has been his collection of used drinking glasses that never make it to the dishwasher. It's a stupid pet peeve of mine I admit, but I cannot stand how every time he gets something to drink Spoilboy always gets a new glass from the cabinet. Throw in a  few empty cereal bowls and spoons and I can go into his room and nearly find another load for the dishwasher before I unload the one still in the machine.

I have long since given up on having him make his bed everyday, while it was something my grandparents instilled in me to do as a form of cleanliness and self-discipline the ubiquitous argument he will always put forward is that he will only mess it up that evening so it is not worth the effort. I just have him make his bed every Saturday morning after changing the sheets.

One fight I have completely surrendered on is making any sense of his closet, weekends at my house are a total military-style campaign on getting all the laundry done before another work week begins. No one wants the hassle on washing clothes while fighting children on homework and the epic school projects that teachers gleefully assign tired parents like my wife and myself.

Thankfully Spoilboy usually does all his own laundry and takes custody of it after it is dried but every once and a while will forget about it when something pops up. On a recent Saturday when Spoilboy suddenly departed the house with a buddy I mistakenly folded his clothes along with items belonging to Dragonwife and Miss Wiggles. It wasn't a big deal, I was watching a movie and as far as chores go folding clothes is actually relaxing in a Zen-like way. Being a dutiful father after I finished I gathered all the folded clothes up and put them away in the correct drawers. Except for Spoilboy's stuff, I opened up his closet door and was greeted with what you see above.

I believe the clothes on the shelf in his closet are clean while the stuff in the hamper below are dirty, although I could not smell any real difference between the two separate piles. For several seconds I stood there holding the laundry basket containing his neatly folded clothes trying to figure out what I would do. My grandparents would have flipped out and made me organize everything had I ever dared to do something similar. In the end the little voice in my head said to leave it alone and I turned the laundry basket over and dumped his clothes out on the floor. When Spoilboy came home later that evening he went into his room and never said a word.