I won’t say too much “angry” things because I don’t think arguing with anyone will get me anywhere and arguing will get you blocked, because my time is better spent elsewhere.
But I will say my heart goes out to the Kirk children, nobody deserves to grow up without a father. However I do believe this is a sign that guns are the problem. At the same time that this occurred another school shooting took place. As far as I’m concerned, my sympathy is only with the children whose lives were irreparably changed and harmed and changed by gun violence that day.
I also think it is perfectly reasonable to say gun violence is wrong, and at the same time, be relieved that someone who was hateful and actively harmed marginalized communities no longer has a platform. Those two statements can coexist. I will always condemn gun violence, and political violence of any sort. But I also can feel relieved that a man who was directly referenced in my transgender friends suicide note, will no longer actively play a part in more deaths of those in my community. I refuse to believe lacking empathy for someone who called empathy “a disease” makes me a bad person when I have actively been grieving my friend since November, and so many American families are actively grieving their own children lost to gun violence every day.
I refuse to feel empathy for a man who thought 10 year olds should carry their rapists baby to term, who thought school shootings were “necessary” to live in America, who thought slavery was a good thing, who thought people like me, and all the people I care about, should be dead. If it were us, the “other side” would be celebrating. In fact, they did. They celebrated when democratic lawmakers in Minnesota were gunned down. They celebrated when 16 year old girl, Brianna Ghey, was brutally mutilated and murdered for simply being transgender. They celebrated when the pulse night club shooting happened. They actively celebrate the genocide in Gaza.
I will not celebrate, but I also will not mourn. Not when I’ve been mourning since November. Mourning my friend who took his own life because he thought the world had no place for him, mourning for the America that celebrated Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion instead of Homogeneity, Inequity, and Exclusion, mourning for the children who constantly loose their lives to gun violence every single year, and mourning for Palestinians who actively have been brutalized, massacred, starved, and bombed with no recourse whatsoever.
I know some may disagree with me, but there are no good faith arguments when it comes to telling marginalized groups that they are evil for not mourning their oppressors. I will not respond to any argument, and will instead delete and block them for my own mental health.
If you feel the need to argue with me, instead I suggest (if you have seen the footage that is, if you haven’t I do not recommend watching) thinking about the fact that if that is what one singular bullet does to a grown man, think about what multiple of those same bullets have done to children. You have no right to judge me or the people I care about for feeling apathetic if you have never said a single thing about school shootings, hate crimes, and genocide.