Tweet, Tweet, A Little Birdie Told the NRA

The NRA has long ‘arms’, so to speak. A professor of journalism at the University of Kansas was placed on indefinite administrative leave for his #NRA tweet about the Navy Yard shootings. Kansas politicians (possibly campaign funded by the NRA?) were appalled by the tweet also and called for the university to remove David W. Guth from the faculty. The offending tweet-“blood is on the hands of the #NRA. Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters.” I was expecting the NRA might respond that their sons and daughters would be well enough armed to have taken down the shooter or something like that because they tend to answer guns with more guns, like the idea about arming teachers in schools to protect kids from gun violence. Apparently plenty of others were offended by the tweet because the professor and others at the university have received email threats as a result of the all the attention generated. I don’t really know exactly where my argument in writing about this tweet is going because I have heard a lot of passionate pro-gun arguments before and they are mentally cycling and refuting the points I’d like to make here. I think the professor’s biggest problem is that his expression of anguish over the events in the Navy Yard that resulted in so much death may be that his words are indelibly etched in cyberspace for ever. He did not heed the old admonition, to be careful what you put in writing (or in tweets). Maybe I’ll just write this, Rep. Brett Hildabrand, a Shawnee Republican urged via Twitter the university to take “appropriate action” against David W. Guth. Maybe Rep. Hildabrand and his fellows should be urged to consider taking “appropriate action” against gun violence.