I wanna talk about guns. Why? Because last week a kid got a gun and took that gun to school and used that gun to kill four people, including two kids. Two kids won’t make it to adulthood because of guns. So naturally it’s time that we as Americans, both citizens and elected officials alike have a long and hard conversation about — you guessed it — mental health.
It makes sense if you don’t think about it too hard. I mean, when terrorists hijacked planes and flew them into the World Trade Center (the anniversary is coming up by the way, don’t forget!), we didn’t talk about the box cutters and the bombs. We instead talked about Mohamed Atta’s anxiety disorder and how the other hijackers played too many video games and listened to Marilyn Manson! Wait, what’s that? We didn’t do that at all and instead created stricter security measures at airports and forced people to chug their bottled waters and remove their shoes while in the TSA line? Well dang. I guess Big Box Cutter doesn’t have that great of a lobbyist.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
When someone robs a convenience store, you won’t hear a peep from these people about the underlying cause most likely being poverty, but you let a kid shoot up a school and all the sudden they are all Sigmund Freud. Matter of fact, the thing that most makes me want to vomit is that this is the only time they will even acknowledge mental illness is a real thing! Once the news cycle is over, they will be right back to calling kids with attention deficit disorder “lazy,” kids with depression “dramatic” and making their one joke about everyone needing a “safe space.” But right now they will acknowledge mental illness, but only because it fits their narrative. Next week, they’ll be back to stepping over homeless veterans while wearing a “Stand For The Anthem” shirt like the good little patriots they think they are.
Now, I’m not going to sit here and act like mental illness doesn’t play its part in a lot of gun-related tragedies. I think we can all agree that if you decide to take out multiple innocent people using any method of violence, you have something serious going on in that noggin’ of yours. But you wanna know what every country has in common? Mentally ill people. They exist literally everywhere. Yet the United States has had more school shootings this year than all of the other countries have had in their entire existence. You can Google that if you want. I’ll still be right when you’re done.
“But Corey, I’m a responsible gun owner. Why should the government take my guns?” Did anyone say they were going to? No. And, by the way, I believe you. But if you are as responsible and cautious as you claim to be, you shouldn’t have any problem with stricter background checks, tests and all the other things we could be doing but don’t do because everyone who loves guns chooses now to believe that everything is either black or white. Yeah, we will except only binary thinking on this topic, thank you very much! You either want me to have no guns or I get to have all the guns, and there is no in between! Where’s your “if he wasn’t guilty then why was he running?” line of thinking now? Poof. Gone the second someone criticizes this country’s gun fetish. (Don’t tell me it’s not a fetish, I’m a man. I know a fetish when I see one!)
My buddy and fellow comedian Chris Gethard has a fantastic bit about all this in which he talks about how he is mentally ill but he’s a responsible mentally ill person! He’s never walked in a public building and shot anyone in his life. This bit resonates with me because A) he’s hilarious and B) I, too, am mentally ill. I take two prescriptions a day to alleviate the symptoms of my illness, but no side effect from either of those pills makes me sicker than when the people who were stigmatizing my illness a week ago use it as an excuse to keep the NRA happy today.
And let’s face it, that’s what all of this is about: keeping the NRA and the gun companies happy. Because we don’t really live in a country “of the people, by the people, for the people” anymore. We are now by the lobbyists, for the corporations. They are the ones pulling the strings. To many a politician, a corporation is more important than people. And when it comes to guns, they are more than fine with people dying for them.
But, please, continue to scare everyone with your “protect our Second Amendment” and your “mental illness is the real problem” rhetoric so that you can have the lowest common denominator of this country secretly championing corporations who wouldn’t pee on them if they were on fire.
And while you’re at it, maybe check all the kids’ backpacks. You never know, there might be a gay book in there!
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