The gun debate is always going to have a certain amount of stupid flying around. People are passionate about the topic and so there will be people on both sides of the issue that get a little carried away. That doesn’t even touch on the fact that some people are functional morons to begin with.
But there are some people who say stuff so stupid that you can’t imagine they actually hold that position.
I’ve seen plenty of anti-gun folks, for example, say things that are so unmitigatingly dumb that I couldn’t think of a better argument for gun rights if I tried. In fact, I’m not entirely sure some of these aren’t the result of pro-gun folks trying to make anti-gunners look even worse than they are.
Of course, that’s not the only direction such things can go.
Flyers linking gun control legislation to Jewish lawmakers have been found in some Richland mailboxes, prompting complaints of hate speech and antisemitism.
It was not immediately clear how many of the illegally-placed flyers were distributed or what neighborhoods were affected.
Dori Luzzo Gilmour, a former Richland City Council member, posted on social media about the offensive flyers. She told the Tri-City Herald she learned about them from a neighbor whose children were upset to find it in the mailbox of their north Richland home this week.
The flyer features an image of a pistol and a headline that claims “every single aspect of gun control is Jewish.”
It includes photos of eight national political figures with a blue Star of David symbol stamped across each of their foreheads. Below their names are their purported voting records on gun control.
The flyer includes several QR codes, references to biblical passages, a website and a disclaimer: “These flyers were distributed randomly without malicious intent.”
Now, I don’t know if these were someone’s legitimate attempt to combat gun control or whether this is a false flag. I lean toward the latter, in part because historically, some of the most public examples of extreme bigotry have turned out to be hoaxes, so my inclination is to figure these are as well.
If they’re not, then a message to whoever sent them: Stop “helping” and get therapy.
While there are certainly proponents of gun control who are Jewish, one of the most staunch gun rights supporters I know is my friend Yehuda Remer, aka The Pew Pew Jew. He’s as pro-gun as anyone I know and part of his rationale can be found on one of the t-shirts he sells: Those with ARs don’t get put in cattle cars.
It’s true regardless of the entity rounding up those they deem undesirable or who falls into that category.
And frankly, I don’t buy that whole “without malicious intent” thing. No, someone knew good and well what they were doing and malice was most definitely a part of it. Only the most idiotic among us–people too stupid to generate human speech, much less write–would think that this would be taken as just a good-faith debate topic. They wanted to rile people up.
Which is why I think this is a false flag. This doesn’t just generate outrage toward antisemitism–which we’ve seen way too much on our college campuses from people who aren’t pro-gun–but links it with the pro-gun movement. This is calculated and intended to hurt pro-gun voices.
And I’m pretty confident speaking for the majority on this side of the debate when I say that we want no part in it.
