“We’re not gonna fix it.” ~ Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN)
That was the gist of Tim Burchett’s response to the killing of three, nine year old children and three members of the staff at The Covenant School, in Nashville, Tennessee.
Given that there have been more mass shootings in America in the year 2023, than the number of days, and given that mass shootings have become a sort of ho-hum, what else is new kind of event, I’ll give Burchett some credit for telling it like it is. Not gonna fix it.
I tell my wife more or less the same thing every time there’s a mass shooting and she says, “They really have to do something about these guns.”
My response to her is always , “They won’t. This is how it is and this is how it’s going to be. The NRA owns the cowards in the Republican Party.”
Yep, I agree with Burchett, but not for the same reasons that he put forth. After, “We’re not gonna fix it,” I hopped off the Burchett bullshit train.
Burchett elaborated by making a nonsensical comparison of school shootings to suicidal Japanese soldiers in World War II. “It’s a horrible, horrible situation, and we’re not going to fix it,” Burchett said. “Criminals are gonna be criminals. And my daddy fought in the second world war, fought in the Pacific, fought the Japanese, and he told me, he said, ‘Buddy,’ he said, ‘if somebody wants to take you out, and doesn’t mind losing their life, there’s not a whole heck of a lot you can do about it.’”
Does that tell anyone how bad it’s gotten when a sitting member of Congress compares a World War to an epidemic of school shootings? It’s an absurd flight of fancy that flies in the face of reason and in fact flies in the face of history.
What Burchett left out in his World War II analogy was the inconvenient fact that American soldiers, in the face of a fanatical enemy, took on the horror, the punishment and the casualties and did something about it. They didn’t throw up a white flag and say, ‘nothing we can do about it.’ If America and its brave soldiers had shared Burchett’s can’t do attitude we’d all be speaking Japanese right about now.
It’s quite possible that Burchett’s “daddy” might be looking down and shaking his head in disgust over his son’s cowardice and defeatism.
Why don’t we just take Burchett’s attitude at face value, stop making laws and repeal every law on every book? Despite laws, people commit murder, they steal, they vandalize and they sure as shit speed and text while driving. Think of the possibilities if we follow Burchett’s lead. Think of all of the policing costs, court costs and costs of incarceration we could save. What a bonanza!
Ah, but Burchett wasn’t done. He opined that we, as a nation need to pray on it, “I think you got to change people’s hearts. You know, as a Christian, as we talk about in the church, and I’ve said this many times, I think we really need a revival in this country” Well, glory, fucking, hallelujah, there you go, it’s that simple. Let’s have a good old fashioned national evangelical tent show and God will make it all go away.
I’m starting to be of the opinion that maybe there should be a religious test given to people who run for office. No, not in the sense that’s popular with the right wing, that in order to run for office one should be an upright, God fearing Christian. I’m of the opposite opinion that if you want to run for office and you think this country “needs a revival,” then maybe you should be disqualified from office. I firmly believe that next to guns and fascism, religion, and specifically Christianity, is one of the greatest threats to America. It’s clear that in America, the three, fascism, guns and Christianity, often travel hand in hand in hand.
During his interview Burchett had a tone deaf moment, because, that’s what Republican politicians do. Burchett was asked, “What else should be done to protect people like your little girl from being safe in school?”
“Well, we homeschool her,” he responded with a shrug. “But you know, that’s our decision. Some people don’t have that option and frankly, some people don’t need to do it. I mean, they don’t have to. It just suited our needs much better.”
Translated that means, ‘Oh, the little woman has to work? Sucks for you then. Buy the kiddos some body armor.’
