true crime, wingnuts

Repost: Couple shocked when they are arrested after their baby dies of starvation…

Most of this post originally appeared on my Blogspot version of The Overeducated Housewife on August 9, 2018. I am reposting it today, because I just don’t feel like writing anything fresh right now. I’m a little depressed today. This case has been updated, so I will offer what details I uncover about it, as of the present.

Shocked!  Shocked!  I tell you!

Meet Seth Welch and his wife, Tatiana Fusari of Solon Township, Kent County, Michigan.  Together, they are the 27 year old parents of three children, with a fourth evidently on the way.  Seth and Tatiana are currently sitting in jail.  Why?  Because one week ago, their ten month old daughter, Mary Welch, died of malnutrition and dehydration.  On August 2nd, Mary’s parents found her dead in her bed.

Mary was their third child and she had been failing to thrive.  Seth and Tatiana had noticed her “skinny” appearance and low weight for at least a month prior to Mary’s death.  Instead of taking her to a doctor, Seth and Tatiana decided to avoid seeking competent medical help for Mary.  They claim they did so for “religious reasons”, although Tatiana Fusari also said that they feared that child protective services would take their kids.  Their worst fears have come to pass.  The couple’s two older children are now in the care of their maternal grandparents and Seth and Tatiana are now charged with felony murder and first degree child abuse.

I first read about this couple on a site called LADbible.  I don’t generally like to use sites with obvious agendas as my primary sources, although it seems that author Mike Wood did a fair enough job reporting about this case.  The Washington Post has also printed an article about this couple who feared CPS more than losing their daughter to malnutrition and dehydration. 

Someone in the Duggar Family News: Life is not all pickles and hairspray group wrote that this couple is from their hometown.  Seth Welch is a farmer who also posted a number of video sermons against vaccines, “bad medicine”, and doctors whom he described as “priesthoods of the medical cult”.  He also has an 8 year old child from an earlier relationship and, according to his public Facebook page, his wife may be pregnant again.  ETA: As of 2023, that page is not working anymore.

Most damningly, Welch explains why he didn’t vaccinate his kids:

“It didn’t seem smart to me that you would be saving people who weren’t the fittest. If evolution believes in survival of the fittest, well then why are we vaccinating everybody? Shouldn’t we just let the weak die off and let the strong survive?”

It’s hard for me to read that comment and reconcile that with the look of utter shock on Welch’s face as the charges against him and his wife are read.  On his Facebook page, he writes of Mary’s death:

Heart is about shattered right now. 

Woke up to Mary dead in her bed this morning – this evening had our children removed and placed on “no contact” because Tati and I are the worst parents ever – Thankfully they are with grandma and grandpa

Just numb inside right now. And I’m really enjoying the loving embrace of an isolation cell from the cops and government employees who keep assuring me “they are only here to help”.

Really?  I would say that if your helpless infant daughter is clearly not thriving and you do absolutely nothing to help her, you would rank as among the “worst parents ever”.  According to his Facebook page, Seth prefers eating a “natural diet”.  Well, Seth, good luck with that while you’re in the jug.  I suspect you will be carb loading from now on…  

People are understandably horrified about Mary Welch’s untimely death.  Lots of folks have posted hateful and profane diatribes on Seth Welch’s Facebook page.  I’m not going to follow suit because I don’t think calling him and his wife “pieces of shit” is very constructive, even if I understand the sentiment.  I have noticed that a lot of men have gone off the rails, though, and become hyper-religious.  One of my friends is originally from Sweden but now lives in Texas.  He’s very intelligent and extremely well-educated.  His comment was:

Steven Weinberg the Nobel Prize winning physicist from Texas said “Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”

I wonder though if religious fanatics/fundamentalist like these people, really are good from the beginning?

Personally, I think a lot of the extreme religious wackos tend to be very narcissistic men who have a lot of charisma and use religion as a means of satisfying their needs for adoration and attention.  They prey on empathetic people and use them, often hoodwinking them into their diabolical schemes.  Religion probably makes these deeds more palatable.  I shouldn’t say it’s always men who do this.  For example, my husband’s narcissistic ex-wife similarly used religion to satisfy her narcissism.  However, she chose a patriarchal religion to do it.  Most western religions are pretty patriarchal.  

I don’t know what Seth Welch’s beliefs are, other than what I read in the couple of articles I’ve seen about his case.  He does have a Facebook page for his “ministry” (ETA: as of 2023, it is still up and functional. People have left awful comments on it.), but it doesn’t appear to be very popular.  There must be a reason why he turned out the way he did.  Maybe there will be more information as the case proceeds.  I’m already seeing some indication that perhaps the other two children aren’t Tatiana’s.  An article from a news station indicates that she was wrongly identified as the mother of the two living children. 

I see that he’s also a Trump fan…  or, at least he liked Trump’s book, The Art of the Deal

Maybe a little less time spent reading Trump’s drivel and a little more time spent tending to your children is in order, Seth.  Don’t you think?

And he has pictures of his farm and garden on his page, indicating that he does know how to nurture plants.  It’s a pity he didn’t nurture his baby daughter.  He also has a couple of Nubian goats whom he says probably would be turned into meat.  Perhaps their lives will be spared, now that Farmer Seth is cooling his heels in the county lockup.

I know this isn’t funny, so I probably shouldn’t make subtle jokes…  It’s just hard to fathom the ridiculousness of this situation.  It’s truly a very sad case.  I feel horrible for the other children whose lives are going to be upended by all of this.

On another note…  I wonder when this photo will be turned into a meme…

Maybe by tomorrow?  Hell, maybe I’ll make a meme out of it myself.  

As of 2023…

Seth Welch and Tatiana Fusari are now divorced. In 2020, Seth Welch was convicted of murder and first degree child abuse in the death of Mary Welch. In October 2021, Tatiana Fusari was also convicted of murder and child abuse. Fusari claimed that she was abused and tortured by her ex husband, Seth Welch, and that made her unable to take care of their ten month old daughter, Mary. During her testimony, Tatiana recalled waking Seth up to feel Mary kick:

“He got mad at me because I wouldn’t let him sleep,” Fusari said. “So…he asked me ‘what the (expletive) was wrong with me’, and he rolled over to face me, and he started punching me in the face. And then I tried to roll over onto my right side, to face the wall, so he would just leave the front side of me alone, but he put his weight on me.”

The next day, Tatiana went into labor. She thought Mary was small because she was born prematurely. She didn’t think anything was wrong with the baby. When she was arrested in 2018, Tatiana Fusari didn’t disclose that she had been abused by Seth Welch. In October 2021, her story was very different. She claimed that she “needed to tell the truth” and that Seth raped her “day after day”. She also stated that Seth controlled her phone and timed her to see how long it took for her to get to and from her job. He printed out a master schedule and demanded that Tatiana stick to it to the minute.

Tatiana Fusari testifies…

Tatiana’s mother-in-law, Judy had mentioned that Mary didn’t look well, and asked Tatiana when she was going to take her to see a doctor. Tatiana stated that Seth thought Mary was fine. He didn’t trust doctors and didn’t want the “government involved in the family’s business.” When Tatiana brought up taking the baby to see a doctor:

“He smacked me across the face,” Fusari said. “He said ‘you know what the (expletive) I think about doctors. Do you want to keep bringing these people into our home?’ And I dropped it.”

Tatiana Fusari also alleged that Seth only wanted Mary fed with food grown on their farm. He would not allow her to be fed with store bought formula. Anytime she questioned him, he would beat her.

Prosecutors argued that Mary’s autopsy showed that she wasn’t feeding Mary. At the time of her death, Mary weighed just 8 pounds. Both Seth and Tatiana were sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for murdering Mary Welch.

Tatiana Fusari’s sentencing.

This is a really sad case. It didn’t have to end the way it did. I hate to think of people rotting in prison for the rest of their lives, but in this case, it’s probably warranted. I would definitely say Seth Welch is where he needs to be. Tatiana Fusari may have very well been his victim, but she had a responsibility to act. It’s tragic that she didn’t ask for the help she obviously needed, for herself, and for her helpless, innocent baby girl.

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Duggars, marriage, religion, wingnuts

A big bumper crop of new fundies in 2023…

Yesterday, I noticed that my blog was getting a lot of hits on posts I wrote about fundie Christian families. I know why people are visiting. Recently, there have been a couple of announcements that are making the rounds on the Internet. But no one should be surprised by the news… because it involves newly married, young, relatively healthy people having sex and getting pregnant. This shouldn’t be news… but when you’re in the Duggar family, or the fame lusting Rodrigues family, baby making is your one big job. Gotta make new quiver arrows for the Quiverfull… although if you were to ask them if they’re following the Quiverfull movement, they’d probably deny it.

So, Katey Nakatsu Duggar, wife of Jedidiah Duggar, is now pregnant with her second baby. She’s due in May 2023. Below is the video posted from Jed and Katey’s YouTube channel, announcing Katey’s condition. I don’t feel the need to snark on Jed and Katey. They are a young couple, and this is only their second child. I’m just glad they didn’t announce it the way they did the first time they were expecting a baby. But dayum, they just had their son in the spring of ’22, so maybe they will give Ma and Pa Duggar a run for their money.

Gotta admit, Truett (the baby) is very cute.

Katey is very pretty… and it looks like she’s already getting the voluminous hair that develops when women get pregnant. Not that I know from personal experience… but I do have a lot of relatives and friends who have been pregnant. I didn’t watch the whole video, but I do know that a lot of folks have been commenting that the annual Duggar party was pretty sparsely attended this year. I guess it makes sense, given the pall cast over the family by Josh Duggar’s incarceration. But at least we get to hear Michelle Duggar shrieking that Katey is pregnant at about 7:30 minutes in… sheesh! John and Abbie’s daughter, Gracie, has the best reaction at all. It’s practically memeworthy…

Gracie is also very cute.

John David looks kind of like he’s got one in the oven, too…

The Duggars aren’t the only ones who had big news… nor is Katey the only pregnant Duggar (Joy Anna and Hannah Duggar — Jeremiah’s wife– are also expecting). Jill Rodrigues, whose daughter, Nurie, is married to Anna Duggar’s brother, Nathan, also shared the news that her second married daughter, Kaylee, is preggo. Kaylee only JUST got married in November, so that means she’s only been expecting for about ten minutes. Nurie and Nathan already have two babies– boys, I believe.

Again, I don’t think it’s a bad thing that Kaylee is pregnant. She’s young, healthy, Christian, and married, and that’s what people like her do. As long as they’re able to take care of the baby, that’s all that should really matter. It’s not her fault her mom is a bit snarkworthy. I sincerely hope she has a healthy pregnancy, even if I’m definitely not a fan of extremely religious people. I see from Jill’s Facebook that besides being newly married and expecting their first baby, the happy couple are also brand new homeowners, as of November 24th. They have a lot going on for being so young. I’m 50, and I still haven’t owned my own home or had a baby.

Nice to know they’ve been so busy.

I’ve found that I’m less interested in the fundies, lately. I’ve been too focused on the soap opera that is Ex’s life. But she’s been pretty quiet over the past few days, and besides, I don’t think most people are as interested in her as I am. Alexis has been busy with the big things in her life, and she’s pretty much the only one who pays attention to the drama that is Ex. So, even though I feel compelled to write about her, I know those aren’t my most interesting topics for regular readers.

Younger daughter sent us a video this morning. Her youngest child, who is a baby boy, is just adorable! He appeared to be very hungry, too. 😉 Guess he’s a breast man, like his grandfather.

And it’s also the day before Christmas Eve… which isn’t a big deal at our house, since it’s just Bill and me and our dogs. But this is the time of year when production tends to slow a lot and people are busy with the annual holiday ritual. So it’s hard to come up with anything exciting to write about that is new or fresh, and I don’t want to delve into politics or world events when people are struggling to be happy for the holidays.

I did get my new parka yesterday. It’s very nice, although I probably need to take more walks to get rid of my beer gut. 😉 People will think I’m pregnant… a la Sarah, elderly mother of baby Isaac. My parents would be so proud that I remembered something from Sunday School. But anyway, it’s a very nice new jacket. I will make good use of it. Especially if we have another cold snap like we did last week.

Well… I’m already kind of bored with this topic, so that about does it for me today. In spite of my occasionally snarky comments about fundie Christians, I do hope the expectant mothers in these families have safe, comfortable pregnancies, and they deliver happy, healthy, much beloved babies. And I also hope you have a great Friday! I think I’ll go back to bed and read more of Matthew Perry’s book. 😉

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Germany, true crime, wingnuts

Turns out, there are right wing wackos in Germany, too…

I don’t have a lot to write about yesterday’s revelation. I read about it online— a group of 25 Q Anon types in Germany, with designs on violently overthrowing the government in Germany. I am not a German citizen, but Germany has been home to me for ten years of my life. I’m 50 years old, so that’s 20 percent of my lifetime– a pretty good chunk. And realizing that, I figure maybe it really is time I learned the language. 😉 A potential New Year’s resolution, perhaps?

Among the right wing wackos was a descendent of German royalty, 71-year-old Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss. The Local: Germany had a couple of pictures of the prince sitting in the back of a police car, wearing an FFP2 face mask and handcuffs. The Polizei had kindly cuffed the man in front, rather than behind his back. They picked up the prince in Frankfurt, which is maybe a twenty minute drive from where Bill and I are currently living. When I saw the photos of him, I was struck by just how German he looked. It’s clear that Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss is a man of means, just based on his dress. For instance, I think I spotted a kravat around his neck, which matched his blazer, blue shirt, and orange-ish brown pants. He was all “put together” looking… it wasn’t a look I would expect to see on a typical Q Anon type in the United States. I read that he works (or worked) as a real estate developer.

A screenshot of a photo showing the prince being taken into custody.

I noticed the German cops were all wearing ninja looking coverings over their heads and faces. Bill said it was because German cops get targeted for doing their jobs. I haven’t seen many rank and file police officers wearing those hoods, so I guess this is a practice more for the high speed police officers who deal with people planning to harm leaders and violently overthrow the government. This particular right wing group, The Reichsbürger movement, and had plans to storm the parliament with a team of heavily armed militants. According to The Local: Germany, this movement has existed since the 80s and mostly consists of gun enthusiasts, neo-Nazis, and conspiracy theorists. However, the incarnation of the group that had actual plans to storm the Reichstag formed in November 2021, “at the latest.”

There he goes.

From what I’ve read, other members of the prince’s family have distanced themselves from him, because of his increasingly divisive rhetoric. I read that he and the rest of his posse are convinced that Germany is being run by a deep state that was formed after World War I. At this time, the prince is said to be the “ringleader” of the group. He pictured himself to be the leader of the new revolutionary government, if the group had managed to pull off the coup attempt. Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss is a descendant of the the House of Reuß that ruled parts of Thuringia for about 800 years. My guess is that he admires Donald Trump very much and would like him to “hold his beer.”

The Local: Germany reports:

In a notorious speech given at a business summit in Zurich in 2019, Heinrich XIII had referenced the antisemitic conspiracy theory that the 20th century world order had been engineered by the Rothschild dynasty and the freemasons. He also complained that his own dynasty had been “disposessed” after the first world war. 

“Ever since Germany surrendered, it has never been sovereign again,” he told listeners. “It has only been made an administrative structure of the allies.”

Obviously, this situation has been stuck in the prince’s craw for a long time. He was ready to do something about it. People in the group he led were trying to consort with Russians. Some members were highly trained military officials. One woman is a lawyer by training and had become very vocal against immigration and was speaking out about conspiracy theories pushed by Q Anon.

He seems to like that blazer.

I can’t even pretend to know a lot about this situation yet, as it was just reported yesterday. Until then, I was thinking Germany was somewhat more normal than my long suffering homeland is right now. But obviously, there are some dangerous people here, too, and they have big plans. We really are living in interesting times, aren’t we? But it seems that yesterday’s arrests came after some 3,000 police officers conducted early morning raids in over 130 properties. Two of the arrests occurred abroad– in Austria and Italy.

Germany’s domestic intelligence service estimates that there are about 20,000 people involved in The Reichsbürger movement. Of those, about 2,000 are considered violent and potentially dangerous. Last April, the police arrested members of an affiliated group, “Querdenker” (Lateral Thinkers), who were angry about the COVID rules and lockdowns, and were planning to kidnap Germany’s health minister, Karl Lauterbach.

Crazy shit, huh? Anyway, I’ll be watching the news to see what else comes out about this group.

I didn’t mention this earlier, but there was also a fatal knife attack on a 14 year old German girl of Turkish descent this week. She and a 13 year old friend were walking home in the small town of Ilenkirchberg, near Ulm, when they were attacked by a knife wielding 27-year-old man. The 13 year old was injured, but not fatally injured. The 14 year old died at a hospital. The man who allegedly attacked them was picked up at “asylum seekers’ accommodation” near where the incident occurred. The suspect was injured when he was arrested, so he’s been in the hospital under guard. He is an asylum seeker from Eritrea, and this case has already been used by right wing politicians as an example of why they think Germany’s fairly liberal asylum policies should be amended and curtailed.

To their credit, the police have asked people “not to harbour general suspicions against strangers, or asylum seekers in general, or to encourage or support such suspicions.” That’s pretty progressive, isn’t it? But violent crimes like that one are no help in discouraging right wing wackos to feel entitled to try to overthrow the government.

I feel so sorry for those poor girls. One died much too young, and the other will never again be the same as she was. May God help us all.

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condescending twatbags, politics, religion, stupid people, wingnuts

The strange case of the scary, satanic, plastic spoon from Sonic…

It’s Sunday morning, so I think I’ll write a post about wacky social media posts by Christians that go viral. Why is it that Jesus loving, God fearing, Christian types are so often white males who want to declare everything fun and fantastic as evil and satanic?

Yesterday morning, as I was cracking open my bloodshot blue eyes for the first time of the day, I opened Facebook and noticed that a college friend had commented on a viral post. My friend had written her reaction to a picture of a plastic toy that was put in a “Sonic Wacky Pack” for a Mississippi man’s daughter. The Mississippian father, name of James Charles Phillips, had written a lengthy post about how his daughter commented that the toy “felt evil”.

Because her father has obviously indoctrinated her with right wing religious bullshit, the child was afraid of the fluorescent green spoon, modeled after the scepter carried by Masters of the Universe character, Skeletor. She threw it out of her dad’s truck… evidently opting to litter, and befouling God’s beautiful creation, Planet Earth. How very Christian.

I decided to share the post with the comment, “This is fucking stupid.” At this point, a number of my friends are laughing with me about this guy’s wackaloon post about the evil spoon from Sonic. Some have agreed with me that this man’s post is also kind of skeevy, since it’s a dad praising his good little daughter for recognizing a piece of plastic as “evil”. One friend pictured the guy wearing a MAGA hat. Another said she got “Jim Bob” vibes, as if the daughter is his property.

My first thought, upon looking at the “scary and satanic” spoon, was that the top of it reminded me of a woman’s reproductive system. Maybe dad was skeeved out because the horns on the scepter look like fallopian tubes. They live in Mississippi, and that’s a place where a woman’s reproductive rights are likely to be stripped away any day now.

Yikes! It really does look like a woman’s reproductive innards. Maybe dad thinks that’s satanic, too. This photo came from Wikipedia and is in the public domain.

I was curious about this guy, so I went to the original post. I noticed that, at this writing, he has well over 16,000 followers on his Facebook page. Who in the hell is he to have so many followers? Especially since he doesn’t write particularly well and lives in Mississippi? So I did a Google search, and discovered Revival in Courage, a Web site that is connected to him. Weirdly enough, the site appears to be based in North Carolina, but when I read the description of the self-described “Constitutional Cowboy”, and look at the person in the pictures, I’m pretty sure it’s the same dude. A link to his very public Facebook page confirms it.

Mr. Phillips appears to be a political activist, who does “motivational speaking and teaching”. He served in the United States Marines, and raises Longhorn cattle and “nine little patriots” with his “bride” on their farm. I looked around the site and wasn’t surprised to find that it’s basically advertising right wing political beliefs, with dire warnings about the United States’s inexorable slide into communism. Once again, I can only shake my head at the lunacy. I don’t think this dude even knows what communism is.

From what I can see on their home page, members of the Revival in Courage group believe that public health mandates are left wing strategies to take away our liberties as Americans. They deny that COVID-19 is a public health emergency, and that ivermectin really does effectively treat the virus. They are vehemently against wearing face masks, and they’re especially against children being required to wear masks.

They are against vaccines for children, even going so far as connecting them to abortion and declaring them “genocidal”. Naturally, they’re against abortion, and want it completely abolished.

This group believes that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” and the results were fraudulent.

This group is against gay pride, and gay rights. They are for forcing children in school to pray and read the Bible, even though not everyone is Christian. They think the schools are full of “filth”… I guess things like the satanic Skeletor spoon from Sonic are “filthy”, as is any discussion of sex education, and any books that might actually give children liberal ideas or help them think critically.

I see that this group deems itself “patriotic”, and refers to members as “patriots” and “minutemen”. And, looking under the speakers tab, I see there’s a list of people– James Charles Phillips among them– who are promoting the idea that they can “save” America from liberals who want to “take away their rights”. One of the speakers is Dr. Jeffrey Barke, who wrote a book titled Covid-19: A Physician’s Take on the Exaggerated Fear of the Coronavirus. The book actually gets pretty good ratings on Amazon, probably because it caters to the many people in the United States who are frighteningly wedded to the extremely conservative “Trumpian” mindset. However, there are only five reviews posted, so my guess is that the ratings are inflated.

I’m sitting here amazed, since a viral Facebook post written by some religious wingnut with extremely right wing ideas, has caused me to fall down yet another rabbit hole, when I could be reading Jennifer Grey’s life story. Still, I was amused by the many posts on the guy’s Facebook page. A lot of people were telling him, in no uncertain profane terms, how fucking stupid this is… and how he shouldn’t be teaching his children to be so terrified of plastic spoons that look like women’s reproductive organs and glow in the dark. In fact, many people have rightly called what this dad is doing as emotional abuse. Isn’t life scary enough without kids being afraid of satanic influences at Sonic? I guess it’s only Chick-Fil-A for this guy’s family from now on, since he’s so afraid of his kids being desensitized and influenced by evil demons at Sonic. If you have some spare time and need a laugh, I recommend reading some of the comments. They’re hilarious. Many people are pointing out that it’s just a plastic spoon!

Mr. Phillips has even posted a video in which he calmly tries to explain himself… I’m not sure he quite makes the mark with what he said in the video. I’m not going to post it here, but it’s on his Facebook page, and at this writing, is still public. He doesn’t sound like Marguerite Perrin of Trading Spouses, at least… but like her, he probably thinks tarot cards and gargoyles are “dark sided” and satanic. What a bunch of nonsense.

Get the hell out of my house in Jesus’ name I pray!

On a more serious note, though… I am a bit scared of these crazy right wing nutters who think they need to “save America” from communism. These people have the unfortunate combination of inherent stupidity, hyper-religiosity, no critical thinking skills, and no experience beyond what they’ve known their whole lives. Add in their love of weapons, and you have people who really could make America a dystopia akin to Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale. Now, to me, that is scarier than Satan ever could be…

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law, politics, wingnuts

Some people really don’t think guns are a problem…

In the wake of last week’s heartbreaking school shootings, I’ve been seeing a lot of people opining about why there’s so much gun related violence in the United States. Many people, myself included, think that there are way too many guns available, they are too powerful, and they are much too easy to acquire. There are also a lot of very angry, disillusioned, mentally ill people in the United States. And since it’s easier to buy a gun than access competent mental health services, there’s a lot of violence. Too many people are being killed. Too many CHILDREN are being killed, or permanently affected, by angry young men with guns. That’s what I think, anyway.

A screenshot of The Second Amendment…

But there’s another side to this issue. There are so many other people who don’t think guns are a problem. They love to spout off that old trite saying, “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” And they say things like, “People have been killing each other forever.” They hold the Second Amendment near and dear to their hearts, as if the right to keep and bear arms is the most important thing in our Constitution. Many of these folks actually believe that owning guns will keep them free.

I grew up near Yorktown, Virginia, which is where victory was declared in the American Revolution. I know the origin of the Second Amendment, which was ratified December 15, 1791, along with the other nine articles of The Bill of Rights. In those days, for many reasons, owning guns made more sense. But the right to bear arms has gotten out of hand. A whole lot of innocent people are being killed, not just because there are enraged, unhinged people who go crazy and spray bullets everywhere, but because people get careless. I’ve read many heartbreaking stories about children killing or hurting themselves, or other people, because they’ve had access to someone else’s improperly stored weapon. Somehow, we never seem to learn from those stories. Americans are still crazy about their guns.

Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of apologists coming out against gun control. They all seem to say the same thing. The reason why people are being killed isn’t because of easy access to guns. It’s because of poor parenting. It sounds crazy as I hear it in my head, and it looks crazy as I type out those words. But there are apparently a lot of people who believe that if people would just be better parents, there would be less violence.

About twelve years ago, Bill and I lived in rural Fayetteville, Georgia. We liked living there, especially since we found a house in a remote area, where we had a lot of privacy. Not surprisingly, a lot of people near where we lived were staunch Republicans who loved their guns. I minded conservatives less in those days, so it didn’t bother me much. That was before so many other children had died, although Wikipedia tells me that even in 2010 and 2011, a whole lot of kids were killed at school by gun toting “ammosexuals”. But, the truth is, I probably just didn’t think about gun violence as much back then.

While we were living in Fayetteville, I subscribed to the local newspaper. I still get emails from that paper every week, even though we moved to Sanford, North Carolina, a similar community, in April 2011. Yesterday, I got the latest issue of The Citizen out of Georgia, and I noticed a letter to the editor written by a man who asks, “Instead of fewer guns, how about better parents?” When I saw that headline, I inwardly groaned. Yet again, just like the “Q guy” I wrote about the other day, this guy was actually blaming “bad parenting” and “lack of respect” on the extreme gun violence in the United States.

The author of the letter to the editor fears “big government”. He begins his screed by lamenting about how Democrats want to take away his guns in the name of “safety”, and fears that if he loses his guns, he will be “vulnerable” to government overreach. Once again, I have to shake my head. Does this man actually believe that the government can’t and won’t take away his guns now? Does he really think he can outgun the government? I don’t see it.

A gun might be useful to have if a wild animal invades your home. It might also be a great thing to have a gun if someone breaks into your house. But guns cannot and will not protect anyone from government overreach. If guns could do that, maybe women who don’t want to be pregnant wouldn’t have to worry about being forced to gestate, and potentially prosecuted if they miscarry. If you get caught breaking the law, and your crime is serious enough, the police will come and arrest you. Your guns won’t save you in that situation. And if the United States is successfully invaded, say, by Russia, China, or North Korea, it’s not likely that your arsenal of guns will prevent that from happening, either. Maybe you can pick off a few people, but eventually, you’ll probably run out of ammo and you’ll be saying goodbye to your guns.

Shared by a Facebook friend, some of the ludicrous issues we’re arguing about in the United States. One of my right wing former relatives shared the Clint Eastwood meme.

Against my better judgment, I kept reading this man’s rationale as to why he must be allowed to keep his guns, even though so many innocent children have been killed by them. And I have to say, I found his reasons why gun violence is such a huge problem to be pretty offensive. He says that “liberals” who are “woke” and obsessed with inflicting “socialism” on the United States are the reason why people are killing each other. He thinks religion– specifically Christianity– and strict parenting can solve this problem. I wonder how the parents of the dead children in Uvalde would feel reading this letter, which basically blames THEM, for the fact that an 18 year old kid was able to buy a rifle on his birthday and shoot up their school.

I’m reminded of what I used to hear when I was a small child, and hated wearing seatbelts in the car. I still hate seatbelts, mind you, but I do wear them. If I don’t, Bill turns into Pat Boone. 😉 But anyway, my childlike logic back then was that I knew my parents were “safe drivers”. After all, they always wore their seatbelts, even if they didn’t often make me wear one. I don’t remember my mom ever being in an accident. My dad was in a car accident, back in 1979, but he never was again after that. So, being a kid with so much vast life experience, I figured I had nothing to fear. But later, when I married Bill, he said “I could be the safest and best driver on the road, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a nut out there on the road who could ruin our day.”

Seems to me, the same logic applies to “good guys with guns”. You could be the safest and most conscientious person in the whole world, when it comes to firearms. You could be the best and most attentive parent, too, and teach your child to always be respectful, courteous, and kind. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be nuts out there who could ruin your day, because THEY aren’t safe, conscientious, or attentive.

Speaking of cars… I see on the above letter to the editor, people have left comments. One person wrote this:

Do you know what the common denominator to any shooting is? Guns.

And sure enough, someone argued that people kill people. They wrote:

Do you know what else is a common denominator? An idiot or idiots who make the choice to take out their anger in a horrible way and take human lives. That denominator is also the reason for the Wisconsin car massacre where a deranged black man drove through a mostly white parade crowd and killed multiple people. Should we take cars away to prevent this from happening again?

Ah yes… the “people kill each other with cars” argument. Well, let’s analyze that for a moment, shall we? In order to be legally allowed to drive a car, one has to be properly licensed. Getting a license requires training and testing, being old enough, and registering with one’s local Department of Motor Vehicles (there’s that darned government overreach again). Why do we have those rules? Because they promote safety and accountability. Automobile manufacturers are also required to install safety features in their cars. Drivers are required to have liability insurance, in case of an accident or negligence that hurts someone else. And if you get caught driving under the influence of a substance, even if you don’t actually hurt or kill anyone, you can get in serious trouble.

It’s true that people can be killed in creative ways, such as the one described in the above comment. Hell, twenty-one years ago, thousands of people were killed when lunatics took over four airplanes and deliberately crashed them into buildings. And you know what? After 9/11, laws changed worldwide, so that such a tragedy might never happen again. So why can’t we do something about the gun violence in the United States? Why should almost any “idiot” over age 18, who can’t even legally buy a beer or a pack of cigarettes, have the ability to buy a gun? Especially guns that can kill twenty-one people– nineteen of them, innocent children– in a matter of minutes?

I love this man’s work, but wouldn’t it be much better if he could use his talents on something else? Children should NOT BE DYING in the numbers they currently are, all because of our “right to keep and bear arms”.

I would imagine that most of the parents of the children killed in Uvalde, Texas, last week, were good parents, doing the best they could. But being good parents didn’t save their children from a gun toting madman. Maybe Salvador Ramos should have had better parents, but he didn’t. Besides, plenty of people have had “bad parents” and not gone on shooting sprees. Simply having had bad parenting is NOT why people kill. I seem to remember Sue Klebold, Dylan Klebold’s mother, being, by all accounts, a good parent. I even saw her interviewed in a documentary, during which she described what it’s like to be the mother of a school shooter. She came across as a warm, caring, conscientious woman. But her son still teamed up with Eric Harris at Columbine High School in April 1999 to shoot and kill 15 people and injure 21 others. They certainly didn’t resort to that kind of horrific violence simply because their parents failed to raise them properly.

I have been living in Germany now for almost eight years. It was never our intention to live here for so long. In some ways, I miss “home”. I haven’t seen my family in a very long time. But I have to admit, I am very grateful that I can live in a safe country with “socialist” laws (eyeroll). Why? Because I never feel the need to worry about people like Salvador Ramos killing me while I’m out and about at the weekend market. I like that Europeans have more respect for communities as a whole, and I don’t agree that having the right to carry a gun makes me “freer”. I certainly don’t think that owning a pistol will save me from “government overreach”. Dammit, I’m really tired of reading the bullshit “thoughts and prayers” apologetics from ignorant conservative people who don’t see the forest for the trees. Guns are a huge problem. We really need to fix it.

And telling people they just need to be “better parents” is about as effective as pissing in the wind.

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