I'm using this unsettling photo of a little boy holding a gun to another little boys head to prove my point.
I was going to sit down and write a light blog. I was going to muse about some of the things that make me go “hmmm” that I saw while I was out and about running my errands today. But then I came home and quickly went on my Twitter feed, just to see how all the gun dialogue was doing in the later half of the day. One woman tweeted at me saying: “With all due respect ladies, if we were together and someone pulls out a gun to rape, beat, or rob us. I hope one of us is packing.”
To which I say; “what we really should be doing as human beings on this earth is teaching our sons that a woman’s body belongs to her, and not to you. Men should not be raping women. Let’s focus on teaching men to not take what is not theirs. This applies to beating a woman, or robbing a woman. A woman is a fellow human being. Not a lesser than species who is here to be taken advantage of in any way shape or form.”
But sadly, people don’t parent like this. Fuck, people barely parent at all anymore, and this lazy attitude straddles all socioeconomic groups. Bad parenting isn’t only for the uber wealthy, or the poor. It’s an equal opportunity role that can be held by anybody.
I was going to keep it light until I saw a post about the cop being acquitted in the Philando Castile manslaughter trial. A police officer who shot a man four times during a routine traffic stop? A burnt out taillight to be specific. Why did that man pass the psychology testing required to become a police officer if he was clearly not confident enough in his role as a cop to be able to keep people obeying the law without the need to shoot first, ask questions later? Like maybe this particular cop should have applied to the military, where you’re actually deployed to find, fight and kill the “bad guys”. I mean if you’re trigger happy, perhaps that’s a better line of work for a guy like that. If what the girlfriend said on the video was true; if Philando announced to the officer that he had a license to carry, so the cop wouldn’t freak out when he saw the gun on his side, and that he was reaching for his wallet which was in the pocket near the gun, then why didn’t the cop give him the benefit of the doubt. Why shoot him FOUR TIMES??? I mean, why shoot him at all is the real question here.
Look I get it. The guy had a gun. The officer saw the gun. The officer believed his life was in danger. But aren’t cops trained to determine what’s a real threat and what isn’t? I always thought they did. I’ve been under the impression my entire life that they undergo extensive training so random shit like this doesn’t just happen. But clearly I’m wrong. I would have thought there was a technique to stepping back from the car, waiting to see if he touches the gun or not. I wouldn’t think it would be to shoot the man FOUR TIMES!?!
I mean, I don’t really know what the proper way to handle that entire situation really was, but I can tell you how I feel about it all. IF PEOPLE WEREN’T ALLOWED TO CARRY FUCKING GUNS IN THE FIRST PLACE PHILANDO WOULD STILL BE ALIVE TODAY.
Period.
End of story.
He would have been given a ticket for a broken taillight and been on his way. He wouldn’t have died in the front seat of his car while his girlfriend recorded the entire thing. His girlfriend wouldn’t have been cuffed and told to “get on her knees” while her litter girl was being held by “the bad guys.”
Which by the way, I CAN’T EVEN with any of that.
The little girl was in the car when the cop reached in and shot the man FOUR TIMES.
The little girl was there when they pulled her mother out of the car and forced her to her knees while they handcuffed her.
The little girl was there when they were both put in the back of the police car, after a cop opened fire on their car, KILLING THE MAN THEY WERE WITH.
That mother and little girl are the victims, yet were being treated like criminals. That little girl and her mom needed to be hugged, counseled and soothed. But that’s not how they were treated in Saint Paul, Minnesota. And this my friends is something that that entire police force and local government should be ashamed of tonight.
My thoughts and prayers are with both of them, and I hope that the little girl grows up in confidence that not all police officers are not to be trusted. I pray that she doesn’t have nightmares for the rest of her days of watching a man that her mother loved die before her eyes.
More importantly I pray that somebody, somewhere, somehow gets America to change their fucking minds over their gun obsession.
