I marvel at whatever political machinery it is which keeps Ken Paxton and people like him in pubic office. I simply marvel. And with the trend in Texas being that the growing Hispanic population is voting more and more Republican, he may stay there a while, pending indictments and all.
Paxton is a piece of work. He was on the radio, part of his media blitz to fight calls for gun restrictions, oblivious to the fact that 19 kids and two teachers were gunned down at Robb Elementary in West Texas.
The average age of the child gunned down was 10. Paxton says, hey, life is short. Okay?
Here’s Texas AG Ken Paxton on what he would tell Uvalde victims’ families:
“I believe god always has a plan. Life is short, no matter what it is.” pic.twitter.com/iO6hugFILe
— Sawyer Hackett (@SawyerHackett) June 15, 2022
Paxton’s comments last week came ahead of emotional testimony by parents of Uvalde victims in the House last week. Kimberly Rubio, whose 10-year-old daughter Lexi was killed in the attack, pleaded for Congress to take action on gun safety in response to the massacre.
“We understand that for some reason, to some people — to people with money, to people who fund political campaigns — that guns are more important than children,” Rubio said while testifying with her husband, Felix. “Somewhere out there, there is a mom listening to our testimony thinking, ‘I can’t even imagine their pain,’ not knowing that our reality will someday be hers. Unless we act now.”
Dr. Roy Guerrero, a Uvalde pediatrician who treated some of the victims, made a similar plea as he described how children’s bodies were “pulverized” and “decapitated” by the bullets from the AR-15-style rifle used by the gunman, to the point that “the only clue as to their identities were the blood-spattered cartoon clothes still clinging to them.”
“Making sure our children are safe from guns, that’s the job of our politicians and leaders,” Guerrero said. “In this case, you are the doctors and our country is the patient. We are lying on the operating table, riddled with bullets like the children of Robb Elementary and so many other schools. We are bleeding out, and you are not there. My oath as a doctor means that I signed up to save lives. I do my job, and I guess it turns out that I am here to plead, to beg, to please, please do yours.”
But after the heart-wrenching testimony, all but five Republicans in the House voted against a package that would raise the age to buy an AR-15 from 18 to 21 and toughen existing gun laws. Senate Republicans have already ruled out any new gun restrictions, as have Republican state leaders in Texas.
Paxton’s immediate response to the shooting was to call for arming teachers, which some schools in Texas already do despite strong pushback from teachers.
Maybe they will arm teachers. What an interesting level of professional responsibility that will be. Can you diagram a sentence? Can you walk kids through a complex math problem, step by step? But most of all, can you gun down anything that moves? And any educator who decides that teaching elementary school might not be for them, they can go into the military, already combat trained. Great.
Paxton is another glaring example of the saying “Only the good die young.” As for God’s will give me a fucking break. Stuff like the murder of all those kids in Uvalde is more indicative of there NOT being a God. Or, if there is then said God is a vindictive, cruel asshole. I’m reminded of an aria sung by Iago in the opera Othello which starts with “I believe in a cruel and vengeful God.”
Paxton is assuming there’s a deity who cares about individuals that much – and there really isn’t evidence for that.
It’s for US to take care of people, and the Rs have made it clear that they can’t find enough in themselves to care about anyone. Sot they can take their “god’s will” and “thoughts and prayers” and stuff them where the sun can’t shine.