THE BERNHARD PERSPECTIVE
When Charlie Kirk was killed the MAGA’s elevated him to almost sainthood status. T**** orders flags flown at half mast. Eulogies abound. Statues appear out of nowhere, and Turning Point USA chapters become mandatory in Oklahoma high schools.
Two National Guardsmen are shot and again, the MAGA’a are incensed. To them it is a “crime against humanity.” Clearly the tragic deaths of these three people caused heart-wrenching angst and apoplexy among the MAGA’s.
However. Consider these statistics on mass shootings in America since 2000. This list is not intended to be comprehensive and only includes incidents where more than ten people died.
Las Vegas, Nevada (2017), 60 people killed at random , 13 killed by a white supramcist outside a grocery store;and hundreds injured;
Orlando, Florida (June 2016), 49 people killed and more than 50 injured in an attack on an LGBTQ nightclub;
Blacksburg Virginia (April, 007), 32 people killed and over 20 injured on Virginia Tech campus; October,
Newtown, Connecticut, Sandy Hook Elementary School (December, 2012), 27 people killed at the school;
Sutherland Springs, Texas (November, 2017), 26 people killed during a Sunday church service;
Uvalde, Texas, (May, 2022), 21 people killed at Robb Elementary School;
El Paso, Texas (August ,2019). 23 dead at Walmart shooting;
Buffalo, New York, (May, 2022) 13 dead outside a grocery store;
Brookfield, Wisconsin (Oct 2007) Living church of God shooting, 11 dead;
DeKalb, Illinois (Oct, 2007) Northern Ilinois shooting. 11 dead.
That’s a total of 240 Americans dead in mass shootings, at at least 60 of them were children.
Indeed, if we include the dead in the some 30 other incidents of mass shootings that left at least 10 dead, we’re already over 370, and that’s not even counting the hundreds of shootings that killed a mere handful. The overwhelming majority of these nameless dead are simply innocent victims of random, senseless violence.
And why did they die?
Social theories abound on this subject. However, Kirk an acknowledged font of MAGA wisdom, alibied these killings in a truly heartless manner when he claimed that “Having an armed citizenry comes with a price. You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won’t have a single gun death. I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.” Indeed, right wing commentators such as Tim Pool and other pro‑gun influencers have explicitly insisted that no amount of dead children justifies limiting gun rights.
This may account for the fact that the best we often seem to get from the from the right wing after a mass shooting is thoughts and prayers, followed by politically-charged accusations and innuendo. For example:
Following the 2023 Nashville Christian school shooting, senior Republicans expressed outrage about attacks on Christians and schools, used the event to attack “woke” culture and trans people.
After the 2022 Uvalde massacre, Texas Republicans and national right‑wing figures responded with intense anger at the local police, the school system, and “soft” security, demanding more armed personnel, fortified schools, and crackdowns on mental health.
The overall pattern of MAGA responses to mass killings is that when conservatives habitually move beyond “thoughts and prayers” to some combination of demanding more armed security and policing in schools, churches, and public spaces, harsher and expedited criminal penalties, expanded “good guy with a gun” responses, culture‑war attacks on liberals and minorities, and even “godlessness,” all framed as the real cause of the shootings.
This is all in directly opposed to what has generally become the left-wing response to these events: a kinder, gentler nation, a humane response to the violence and support for federal gun‑control legislation.
The truth here seems to me to be that besides the fact that the America public in general has become inured to this level of slaughter by firearms, American conservatives seem to get aroused to more than their standard, off-the-shelf responses only when they identify with the victims.
The rest of the dead are deemed expendable to the god of the 2nd Amendment, or more simply because of who they are. They serve only to create a platform for political rhetoric aimed at perceived political and cultural targets. There is something fundamentally wrong with this picture.
And that is reflected in the politically-charged and cold-hearted response of the conservative right which does not weep out loud for long over the untold thousands who fall victim to mass shootings. Instead, they respond emotionally with knee-jerk angst, then continue with heartless, soulless bullshit. Their lack of humanity is apparent and appalling.
And that’s what is wrong, here.
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