Seventeen more kids have been killed, needlessly, in Florida after a crazy young man used a semi-automatic rifle to mow them all down inside a local school. There continues to be zero action from American government officials with regards to curbing this form of senseless violence. On one side, we have politicians blaming guns. On the other, we have politicians blaming mental illness. I haven’t seen anywhere that both of those factors are reasons. I’ve asked this question over and over and over again, yet have received no answers from anyone: Why does any human need to have a semi-automatic weapon? The satirical website The Onion sums it up best - ‘No Way To Prevent This’ says the only nation where this regularly happens. How about Canada sell their gun control model to the United States as part of the NAFTA agreement? What harm could there be? What they have isn’t working. That’s clear. The fact they do nothing is more offensive than anything people have complained that is offensive in my lifetime.
Apparently, the shooter in the Florida school killings made some comments online about wanting to kill people in an educational setting. This is why I have, long ago, lobbied to have anyone who makes a statement concerning the threat of violence to receive a penalty that is equal to having actually committed the act. In this case, it looks like authorities didn’t take the remark seriously. What’s worse is that survivors of this tragedy spoke to media and said they felt this looney tune was very capable of the mass killing that was carried out, yet nobody spoke up because of the hurt feelings caused in the event that he wasn’t a nut job. And, this, my friends, is what has happened to our world and why it sucks today. The importance of your feelings is greater than my right to stay alive.
Another political matter on this that just burns me to the core is when people say there is no point to fight terrorism when domestic terrorists are a greater threat. Both should be of concern and you don’t have to pick one over the other. Neither are related to the other. It’s like saying you can’t clamp down on drunk driving because drug dealing is a greater concern. It’s nonsense.
I feel I need to clarify that I am not a Hedley fan, but what has happened to them in the last week is wrong on so many levels. If you aren’t familiar, apparently they made some women uncomfortable years ago with lewd behaviour. The response from virtual signalling officials has been to remove them from hosting the Junos, their opening act on their current tour has quit, their management has fired the band, and a number of radio stations have decided to remove them from playlists. The names of the people accusing Hedley of misconduct have not been made public and there is no evidence they sexually assaulted anyone. In fact, all of the complaints that I’ve seen have come from women (who say they were underaged girls at the time) who have not had sexual relations with members of the band. Could there be some jealousy at play here? And, maybe they are guilty. But, what are they guilty of really? Many of these accusations are from more than ten years ago, which would make the lead singer of the band between 21-23 years of age. Is he supposed to get legal identification from females who are throwing themselves at him? The other thing that is difficult to explain to holier than thou folks is that there are a lot of people who like to engage in sexual behaviour that some of us find offensive, but as long as everyone is of legal age and as long as it’s consensual, nobody else has the right to decide what should be acceptable behavior from a group of musicians. If you don’t like what they stand for, don’t buy their music or go to their concerts. Even if Hedley is guilty of all the accusations that I’ve read about on social media, they would register as a 1 on a scale of 1-10 with regards to the seriousness of offense. Go read the autobiography of Keith Richards or Motley Crue. I don’t see radio stations dropping those acts. In the case of Motley Crue, there are admitted instances sexual assault. Nobody has banned them. It’s just really sad to see this mob mentality destroy a successful musical act. The mob grows and then the fans who wish to stand behind the band and support them get branded with ‘condoning rape’ when there is just no evidence to support it whatsoever. They are supposed to be in Saskatoon later next month and I don’t know if they will survive that long to actually put on a show, but I hope they do and I hope the place is full. Heck, I should even go just to show that I won’t support anonymous accusations. If they are guilty of, knowingly, having sex with children then I’m all for exiling them into the abyss. But, it’s very premature.
Out of space this week, but I really wanted to comment on Patrick Brown and what false allegations have done to his life. There’s always next week.
Nice person mentions: Scott Fitzsimmons, Cara Zubko, Danielle Drake, Larisa Wolkowski, and Doug Reeve.
