Either pro-gun lawmakers are killing us, or they're just fine with profiting from the people who are.

So it turns out that you can put a price on the victims of gun violence.  We'll get to that, but first, let's do a thought experiment. Let's say you're walking somewhere secluded, and you come across some train tracks.  You quickly notice two things: there are four people tied to the tracks, and off in the distance there's a massive train heading towards them.

Upon further inspection, you see that the knots are rudimentary, and you can untie these people. But, as soon as you start, a man appears, and says “I'll give you a thousand dollars- all you have to do is nothing. In fact, I'll teleport you away from the here, so you don't even have to watch what happens.”

You accept the deal, and you are suddenly at your house, with a thousand dollars in your wallet.

Now, this isn't exactly a moral problem. You aren't choosing between one life and five- you aren't even choosing between one life and another. It's more simple than that- you could have saved these people, but you took the money.  You've just traded lives for money, at the rate of 250 dollars per dead person.

   

Here's my question:  Are you a murderer? Or are you simply somebody who just profited from a murder?

Unless you think the answer is "neither," you have to admit that members of the United States government are either trying to kill us or are OK with others killing us, if the other people pay them enough.  If you can't disprove any of the following, there isn't any other conclusion to reach.

Gun murders are an inevitability. There's absolutely no evidence to suggest otherwise. For almost eight hundred years, human beings have possessed firearms, and we have used them on each other (and ourselves) the entire time, for various reasons. To suggest that, without any change in policy, people will stop shooting each other is ludicrous. I can't say it any other way. The train is coming, and there are people tied to the tracks.

So who plays "you" in this particular situation? Lawmakers. There are people who are in charge of changing the laws to adapt to the changing world- including the chugging train that is the inevitability of gun deaths- and they aren't doing their fucking jobs. In fact, they've actually probably spent more time coming up with excuses for not doing their fucking jobs, or looking for more people to pay them and vote for them for not doing their fucking jobs.  

If somebody works at a fast food chain, and you ask them why he hasn't cleaned the fryer oil off the dining room floor, you probably wouldn't be satisfied when he says “Look, I don't need to clean the floor. There's a big mess out in the parking lot.” Only, instead of cleaning up said parking lot mess, he goes and smokes some pot in the walk-in fridge, then asks your boss for a raise, and gets it.  

This is all certainly awful enough, but let's talk about the last little detail from the thought experiment: The man who pays. Enter the NRA, and organizations like them. In 2015 alone, the NRA (and it's lobbying arm) has spent $2,755,240 for and against candidates to advance the agenda of doing jack shit about gun violence. 

So here's how you calculate the NRA's value of a human life.  I mentioned a thousand dollars for four people, but it's actually more than that- take the ~2.75 million and divide it by ~12,000 people killed by guns this year, and you have around $2260 per dead person. That's the going rate, anyway- with this latest shooting in San Bernadino and Georgia (and the shootings that will inevitability happen before the year is over) I'm sure there will be another rate negotiated come next years election cycle.

So they're murderers, or sponsored by murderers. Decide which, and decide which is worse.

Sam lives in Austin, TX, and generally spends his time being pissed off about sports, politics, and Gene Simmons.  Follow him on twitter, or email him.