{"id":104255,"date":"2018-07-05T00:56:03","date_gmt":"2018-07-05T07:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=104255"},"modified":"2018-07-05T08:13:29","modified_gmt":"2018-07-05T15:13:29","slug":"the-gun-cultist-as-horror-movie-villain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2018\/07\/the-gun-cultist-as-horror-movie-villain.html","title":{"rendered":"The Gun Cultist as Horror Movie Villain"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>A Christian believes that life is sacred from conception to natural death.  The American Gun Cult, in contrast, has striven for 30 years to see to it that this, sung to the tune of \u201cTwinkle, Twinkle, Little Star\u201d is now to be the New Normal in kindergartens across America:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">A mother in Massachusetts took this photo inside her kindergartner\u2019s classroom. One Twitter user described the rhyme as \u201csomething out of a horror movie.\u201d<br>\nSTORY &gt;&gt; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/TCIoUr6KaF\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/TCIoUr6KaF<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/HJ9JhzgLw4\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/HJ9JhzgLw4<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 TucsonNewsNow (@TucsonNewsNow) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TucsonNewsNow\/status\/1004771945131307008?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">June 7, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>One of the qualities of the Horror Movie Villain that makes him so creepy is his sociopathic narcissism. Such villains give us chills, not because they twirl their mustaches and rub their hands at being eeeeeevil, but because they simply do not see their victims at all even when they are looking right at them.<\/p>\n<p>This is the mark of the Gun Cult. A Gun Cultist, I say again, is not somebody who owns or shoots guns. A Gun Cultist is marked rather by his total, obsessive, self-absorbed narcissism. When confronted by the spectacle of slaughter in an elementary school, the normal person automatically responds, \u201cDear God in heaven, what can we do to make sure this never happens again!\u201d It is the normal response of any psychologically well-adjusted human.<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, the sole response of the Gun Cultist is \u201cI didn\u2019t do it! Screw you! Don\u2019t touch my gun!\u201d  He may elaborate on this primal selfishness with more crazy, such as, \u201cThis was a hoax perpetrated by Obama! The parents of those \u2018dead kids\u2019 are in on this!\u201d or some variation on these themes. But at the heart of the response is this: when push comes to shove, the Gun Cultist would rather see every single child in the US have his or her head blown off than consider even the tiniest change to our gun regime. Put very simply, if you ask Gun Cultist, \u201cIf you had to choose between every kid in the US being shot in the head and giving up your gun?\u201d the Gun Cultist would gladly see every child die first.  Of course, he does not say that so plainly.  But his every word and action is ordered that end. To every call for change he always, always, always offers resistance, denial, and counsels of inaction, despair, futility, and the maintenance of the status quo.  And that means, with absolute statistical certainty, that by year\u2019s end 35,000 people will be dead and there will absolutely have been several more mass shootings and school slaughters.<\/p>\n<p>The Gun Cult owns that 100%.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t you think that\u2019s overstating things, Mark?<\/p>\n<p>No. Because, in fact, after Sandy Hook (and the many many many many many mass shootings since then) the Gun Cult has, in fact, fought tooth and nail to make sure that there is not the slightest change to our gun regime. The trivial fact that we don\u2019t have the capacity to <em>actually <\/em>kill every child is beside the point. We know what the Gun Cult is willing to sacrifice. We\u2019ve known it since Sandy Hook.  Now they are just haggling about the price. They will not only gladly permit the slaughter of an unlimited number of children, they will do everything they can to attack and even murder those children should they protest the Gun Cult.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net\/v\/t1.0-9\/34579143_1676992715689988_3570226993985224704_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&amp;_nc_eui2=AeETbqDq-lvWkWmQ5UyNpJsr28GLZTGFJPZOixB403XCuHnET1b2Cn28pRiWB25uY55P1ZxWqH7dj1Cj3O0O3xioPVtzl4Z0DdPFCMW4Mlry6A&amp;oh=4ca479c00995329233ae896ee4972234&amp;oe=5BB213DE\" alt=\"Image may contain: 2 people, text\"><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2018\/06\/hoax-emergency-call-sends-swat-team-to-home-of-gun-control-activist\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">And so, some Gun Cultist called in a SWAT team on David Hogg a couple of weeks ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Let us be clear: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2017\/12\/29\/16830626\/call-of-duty-swatting-prank-kansas-man-dead-police-shooting\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">This was an attempt at murder-by-cop<\/a>. From the Gun Cult that lies that it fears a powerful state and needs guns to protect itself from that state. The Gun Cult has no problem with using the state to crush and even kill its enemies. That is what this was: attempted murder, not a prank. The cops have an obligation to do whatever they can to track down the person who made this call and prosecute them for attempted murder.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Christian believes that life is sacred from conception to natural death. The American Gun Cult, in contrast, has striven for 30 years to see to it that this, sung to the tune of \u201cTwinkle, Twinkle, Little Star\u201d is now to be the New Normal in kindergartens across America: A mother in Massachusetts took this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[594],"class_list":["post-104255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gun-violence-is-a-prolife-issue-too"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Gun Cultist as Horror Movie Villain<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A Christian believes that life is sacred from conception to natural death. The American Gun Cult, in contrast, has striven for 30 years to see to it that\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2018\/07\/the-gun-cultist-as-horror-movie-villain.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Gun Cultist as Horror Movie Villain\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A Christian believes that life is sacred from conception to natural death. The American Gun Cult, in contrast, has striven for 30 years to see to it that\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2018\/07\/the-gun-cultist-as-horror-movie-villain.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Catholic and Enjoying It!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-07-05T07:56:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-07-05T15:13:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net\/v\/t1.0-9\/34579143_1676992715689988_3570226993985224704_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&amp;_nc_eui2=AeETbqDq-lvWkWmQ5UyNpJsr28GLZTGFJPZOixB403XCuHnET1b2Cn28pRiWB25uY55P1ZxWqH7dj1Cj3O0O3xioPVtzl4Z0DdPFCMW4Mlry6A&amp;oh=4ca479c00995329233ae896ee4972234&amp;oe=5BB213DE\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Shea\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark Shea\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2018\/07\/the-gun-cultist-as-horror-movie-villain.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2018\/07\/the-gun-cultist-as-horror-movie-villain.html\",\"name\":\"The Gun Cultist as Horror Movie Villain\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-07-05T07:56:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-07-05T15:13:29+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/c1a9ac1e557d3c626974fd6692818ad5\"},\"description\":\"A Christian believes that life is sacred from conception to natural death. 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