When is the right time to stand up for something you believe in? Is it after your 6-year-old child is shot dead in his classroom, along with 25 other people (mostly children) by some lunatic with an assault rifle and endless rounds of ammo? Is it during a Connecticut legislative hearing on stricter gun control so that maybe, just maybe this type of unspeakable horror doesn’t happen at your kid’s elementary school too?
Puh-lease! What you people got lead in your brains or something?
It is NEVER the right time to talk about guns, unless of course it is to stroke the cool, smooth hard-bodied exterior of America’s sexiest problem solver: the Bushmaster assault rifle.
Just ask Neil Heslin, whose six-year-old son was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School, what happens when you try to pry automatic machine guns from American’s jittery, frightened, still-trigger-warm hands.
“The Second Amendment!” was shouted a couple of times by as many as a dozen gun enthusiasts in the meeting room as Neil Heslin, holding a photo of his slain 6-year-old son, Jesse Lewis, asked why Bushmaster assault-style weapons are allowed to be sold in the state.
Woohoo! Way to stick it to him, guys with loud, shrieking voices who know how to yell at grieving fathers whose dead kid got shot a half-dozen times by an assault rifle while talking about said kid getting shot a half-dozen times by an assault rifle.
The nerve!
“There are a lot of things that should be changed to prevent what happened,” Heslin told lawmakers in a heartbreaking testimony.
“I’m here to tell you…Changes have to be made,” said Heslin, who said he grew up using guns and was undisturbed by the interruption of his testimony. “I’ll tell you a little bit about Jesse. He was a boy that loved life, lived it to the fullest. His mother and I are separated. He spent equal time with both of us. He was my son, he my buddy, he was my best friend, and I never thought I would be here speaking like this, asking for changes on my son’s behalf.”
Funny what happens after your child is slain in a gun massacre.
“That wasn’t just a killing, it was a massacre,” said Heslin, who recalled dropping off his son at Sandy Hook Elementary school shortly before Lanza opened fire.
“And I never thought I would be laying him to rest. The happiest day of my life was the day he was born. He is my only son, my only family. The worst day of my life was the day when this happened.”
“I just hope some good can come out of this.”
Good? That’s for pussies. Guns? Now that’s for real men!
“We’re all entitled to our own opinions and I respect their opinions and their thoughts,” Heslin said. “But I wish they’d respect mine and give it a little bit of thought.”
Thought?? There’s no time for thought when you’re unloading 600–800 high impact rpm (rounds per minute).
Remember people, here in ‘merica, we shoot first, yell crude insults at a man whose first-grader was killed a month ago later.
That way, we can protect the real victims in all of this. Our most precious commodity, one which we’d give our life and liberty to protect and defend.
No, no, not our sons, silly. Our guns!
[image via Rawstory]