THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD
(apologies to Keith Olbermann)
Candi Kinney
The deadliest mass killing in the state’s history had taken place a few miles away and to the staff and customers of the Roseburg Gun Shop it was clear they faced a grave threat - from Barack Obama. Authorities had just discovered a cache of 13 weapons possessed by the shooter, Chris Harper Mercer, but the man they feared was thousands of miles away in the White House, plotting, as they saw it, to confiscate their weapons and leave them defenceless…. “I’ve just ordered some more ARs,” said the owner, Candi Kinney, referring to assault rifles. “There’s always a rush on them after a big shooting. We can’t keep the stuff on the shelves.”…. A lifesize cardboard cutout of the president with an Arab keffiyeh scarf stood at the door with a mocking sign: “Gun salesman of the year.”
If you believe that every cloud has a silver lining, you’re going to LOVE Candi Kinney, the owner of the Roseburg Gun Shop who’s managed to look on the bright side of last week’s massacre at Umpqua Community College just down the road. Sure, a lot of people died…BUT JUST THINK OF ALL THE GUNS WE’RE GONNA SELL!!!
When I first heard this story, I was convinced there was no way that anyone would be so crass and heartless as to try to profit off a massacre that happened just a few miles away. Alas, after a bit of research I was saddened to learn that Ms. Kinney is dead serious (pun fully intended). Because grief only gets in the way of making a profit…and it’s not like you can blame guns, because as ANY good, red-blooded, Conservative American patriot will tell you, guns don’t kill people- PEOPLE kill people.
Right.
In the same way Gun Owners of America, located in Newtown, CT, soft-pedaled the massacre just down the road at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Candi Kinney appears to view mass murder in her hometown as merely the price of freedom from a tyrannical government.
Yep, gotta make sure and use fear to sell as many semiautomatic weapons of mass destruction as possible. Because one never knows when the black helicopters will land and the ATF agents will begin mass confiscation of guns.
Just so you can rest easy tonight, business has been brisk and steady at Roseburg Gun Shop, and some of the customers in the store browsing or buying new ways to kill as many people as they please were glad to explain why they were there. Chris Allen, who said he’s a mill worker, said:
“Obama sucks, he’s stupid. If criminals want to get guns they’ll get guns.”
Damn right! Let’s all arm ourselves to the teeth. That’s sure to stop all the killings we see on the evening news.
Roseburg Gun Shop is a symptom of a much greater disease which is eating away at the United States: We are perversely addicted to all things gun and all things death. It has become the cult that millions belong to and support with their time, their money, and their venom.
Perhaps it’s because I was raised to believe that ‘tis better to be thought ignorant than to open your mouth and remove any lingering doubt. And perhaps it’s because I was taught that taking satisfaction out of or profiting from the suffering of another is a terrible thing. Whatever the reason(s), I just can’t get past the feeling that Ms. Kinney really is a miserable example of an utter lack of humanity. To profit off the deaths of people from her own community is sickening. To continue to perpetuate the dishonest and fallacious “OBUMMER’S GONNA TAKE YER GUNZ!!” delusion only demonstrates Ms. Kinney’s willingness to profit off ignorance and tragedy.
The customers and sales staff in this store, located 10 miles (16 km) from Umpqua Community College, where a gunman killed nine people and injured nine others on Thursday, said they were horrified by the shootings. But they were not buying the president’s argument that guns were the problem.
On Friday, as customers browsed in the store, many of them preparing for the start of deer hunting season on Saturday, talk was focused on Obama’s call the previous evening for stricter gun laws. No one there liked the idea.
Don Sheldon, 52, a police officer in the town of Winston, which borders Roseburg to the south, said that when he pulls people over and learns they have a concealed carry permit, he thanks them.
“Because they’re exercising their Second Amendment rights,” Sheldon said….
It’s interesting that Sheldon and his fellow Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes © see nothing wrong with twisting the 2nd Amendment to fit their own self-interested agenda. The “right to bear arms” that “shall not be infringed” is NOT seperate from the need for a “well-regulated militia,” which I’ve yet to see anyone demonstrate actually exists. No, it’s about the belief of Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes © that they have the God-given right to possess any and all manner of firepower wherever and whenever they choose.
The 2nd Amendment isn’t a blank check, and it’s the Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes © who’ve created an atmosphere in which mass murderers flourish. Will common sense gun control prevent all mass murders? Of course not…but that shouldn’t mean the lack of a perfect solution should be taken as indication that we should do nothing.
Unless you’re a self-centered, self-absorbed monster unaffected by the idea of having blood on your hands.
Hours after the shooting, a visibly frustrated Obama urged Americans to press their elected leaders to enact tougher firearms safety laws, and he criticized those who in a knee-jerk fashion oppose “common-sense gun legislation.”
It was the last thing people like Sheldon wanted to hear. “I’m tired of the government telling me what to do all the time,” he said.
Despite what these willfully ignorant and desperately ill-informed ‘Mericans believe, the government isn’t “telling me what to do all the time.” The government is us- the American Sheeple- and we have a collective interest in maintaining safe communities. The answer to gun violence isn’t “MOR GUNZ!!!” It’s not the ridiculous canard that “An armed society is a polite society.” All “MOR GUNZ!!” will do is increase the collective lethality and with it the likelihood that yet more innocent people will die.
The fact is that “The only thing that will stop a bad guy with a gun” is just plain wrong. We need to be allowed to have a rational, adult conversation about common sense gun control…without the ninnies screaming “OBUMMER’S GONNA TAKE OUR GUNZ!!”
While gun control advocates hope the president’s blistering response to Roseburg’s tragedy will prompt reform, Roseburg hopes it will produce more armed citizens.
Interviews with almost a dozen residents on Friday yielded unanimity - even in the queue of people lining up to donate blood at a tent set up downtown. “Obama sucks, he’s stupid,” said Chris Allen, 43, a mill worker. “If criminals want to get guns they’ll get guns.” Allen had lost a brother to gun violence - a separate tragedy which only steeled his pro-gun resolve.
“Make this a gun-free zone and you paint a target on us,” said one elderly man, a laptop shopper at Staples who declined to give his name. “Criminals will come here because they’ll know no one will damn well shoot back at them.”
Umpqua Community College is NOT a gun-free zone under Oregon law, and blaming the UCC massacre on it being a gun-free zone is as dishonest as it is wrong. Believing that making an area gun-free only paints a target on you only serves to demonstrate a world-class level of paranoia. Guns aren’t the solution, and bloodshed isn’t the answer to public safety issues.
For her part, Ms. Kinney should be ashamed of trying to profit off the tragic, senseless murders of people in her own community. Then again, I suppose that’s just the sort of thing you do when you value guns more than life itself.
