Uh-oh. It is time for “reasonable people” to “insist on a real discussion”. The topic this time: Gun control. Great, just great. I have an idea. Let’s not have a discussion.
The person asking for the discussion: Jason Alexander. For those of you that don’t remember, he was George Constanza on the classic comedy “Seinfeld” and is currently directing TV shows, such as the unclassic “Franklin and Bash” (who opened for Seals and Croft in the 70’s.)
The impetuous for our “discussion “ is the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting in which 12 people were killed by a person that up until recently was enrolled in a PhD program. It is unclear if shooter was influenced by: A) Sarah Palin or B) Rush Limbaugh. Since the killer is a college student, like the Virginia Tech shooter, people from all of the country have been calling for a ban on college students.
Actually, this has cranked up the American debate machine regarding gun control and our nation turned its lonely eyes to Jason Alexander, who always wanted to pretend he was a pundit. We were thinking, “I wonder what Jason Alexander thinks about this horrible criminal act?”. He told us, Jerry, boy did he tell us.
Alexander’s post on “Twitlonger”, a place where you can make long Tweets, is classic Constanza. He begins by saying, “I'd like to preface this long tweet by saying that my passion comes from my deepest sympathy and shared sorrow with yesterday's victims and with the utmost respect for the people and the police/fire/medical/political forces of Aurora and all who seek to comfort and aid these victims.” Everybody was horrified by what happened, on that we all can agree. But, no, the discussion has to begin.
He continues: “That comment (he posted a tweet about assault rifles), has of course, inspired a lot of feedback. There have been many tweets of agreement and sympathy but many, many more that have been challenging at the least, hostile and vitriolic at the worst.” New flash: Gun Control is controversial.
I won’t review the rest of Alexander’s post. It contains the average Pro Control rhetoric. I will add this: I have never seen a Gun Control argument with one side saying, “You know, you are right! I’m going to change my opinion”. Alexander basically says the Pro Gun people are dangerous loons. There’s even a part where Alexander types in all capital letters (which is “screaming” in internet speech). I added the word, “Jerry” and names of other Seinfeld characters to parts of the rant just for fun.
“SO WHY DO YOU CONTINUE TO SUPPORT THEM? (Jerry) WHY DO YOU NOT, AT LEAST, AGREE TO SIT WITH REASONABLE PEOPLE (Jerry) FROM BOTH SIDES (Kramer) AND ASK HARD QUESTIONS AND LOOK AT HARD STATISTICS (Elaine) AND POSSIBLY MAKE SOME COMPROMISES FOR THE GREATER GOOD? (Jerry) SO THAT MOTHERS AND FATHERS AND CHILDREN ARE NOT SLAUGHTERED QUITE SO EASILY BY THESE MONSTERS? HOW CAN IT HURT TO STOP DEFENDING THESE THINGS (Jerry) AND AT LEAST CONSIDER HOW WE CAN ALL WORK TO TRY TO PREVENT ANOTHER DAY LIKE YESTERDAY?”
I put the lovable character’s names from the TV show in the rant because I don’t quite know who Alexander is talking to here. He spent a good bit of this Tweet demonstrating how people who do not agree with him are not reasonable and are unable to ask hard questions. Here’s a hard question: How did strict gun laws prevent the Norway massacre of 69 at a youth camp last year?
Whenever someone says “they want to have a discussion” it usually means that they want to do all of the talking because they are the masters of their own domain. Usually, their opinions end up being about nothing.
By the way, I do not own a gun and have never shot one.
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