This entry will begin with a short exercise.
What's the first thing that comes to mind when you look at the three photos below?
If you reacted with words such as "grooming" or "child abuse" for any or all of the three, congratulations, you're a moron.
Let's begin with the first two pictures. I'll start by clearing up a potential misconception about children shooting guns. In a safe home environment, all guns are locked up in a manner that prevents kids or any other unauthorized parties from accessing them. This was the case in my home, growing up and later, when I had (step) kids of my own. If you're picturing kids running amok with loaded guns, you're a bit off.
Logically, it's those on the left who take issue with the first two pictures, making accusations of you guessed it, grooming and/or child abuse. When challenged on what exactly the children in these pictures are being groomed for, the majority don't really have an answer. Some will say they're being groomed to be school shooters or "they're being groomed to think guns are normal". I receive the same nebulous answer when I ask why such activities are child abuse.
Here's a news flash for you: In many homes across the country, particularly in rural areas, guns are normal.
Teaching kids to shoot helps them learn helps them learn things like discipline and patience, along with gun safety and most importantly, the destructive power they hold in their hand. I've previously written about my own childhood where my grandfather owned guns and taught me gun safety and how to shoot, once I got old enough (around 10, as I recall). Most of my friends' dads owned guns and they taught their kids to shoot as well. This sort of activity has been going on for as long as the US has existed. Shooting guns is a family bonding activity.
I'm sure there are some readers who've lost their minds over my comment about shooting being a family activity. Here's some news for you; you're allowed to be uncomfortable with anything you want, but you're not allowed to condemn something you don't understand. That would put you on the same plane as the hard right.
Here's another news flash - Based upon my research, kids who grow up with guns are much less likely to commit mass murder. More accurately, most mass shooters and mass murderers don't have a long history with firearms, based upon the data I've compiled. On the murder side, one simply needs to look at some of the recent events where it was reported the shooter purchased their weapon within weeks or months before. That's one of the reasons they choose AR-15's; they're easy to use. Obviously, this wasn't the case in Maine, but that guy is a severe outlier, both in experience and age.
A final thought to close that topic. True shooters don't pose with their guns for family Christmas cards. There are only three occasions you'll find a shooter and his unholstered gun in the same picture. First is if the shooter is actively firing the gun; the only picture of me holding a gun is when I was shooting a stage, when won the USPSA PA State Championship. The second is if the shooter just achieved a truly noteworthy feat with their gun (this is mostly confined to rifle shooters who've broken a distance record). The final exception is if the shooter won the gun off a prize table or from a raffle, and then it's only used for publicity by the sponsor. Beyond that, the shooting community views these sorts of photos as seriously cringeworthy, so none of us takes them. Ultimately, the douche canoes that take pics of their entire family holding sometimes garbage quality AR's are only guilty of grooming their kids to be the next generation of douche canoes.
Moving on to the third picture, there are those who are convinced the LGTBQ community consists of pedophiles who want to groom children to be gay. This belief is the result of two factors. The first is their inherent bigotry and hatred of those they consider deviant, based on their perverse religious beliefs or plain ignorance. This is exacerbated by the second factor, which is right wing media validating and amplifying these prejudices.
With respect to harming children, these people seemingly don't care about facts or logic. I encounter them on the shooting message boards and they consider pedophilia to be inherent with the LGBTQ community; essentially, every one of them is a pedophile. Those who aren't terribly bright, may find it to be shocking that LGTBQ people have been around since the dawn of time (they've had to remain closeted for fear of persecution). If they were inherently child harmers, there would be mounds of incontrovertible data confirming that to be the case. But there isn't. What does exist is a massive amount of data that clergy and religious right wingers have an extremely high predilection for touching children. To be clear, preying on children is reprehensible and offenders should be subject to stoning, regardless of their sexual orientation or political affiliations.
The flaw in what I'll pretend is logic by these hateful people is not understanding how the brain works. You can't groom someone into being gay; it's just not how the brain works. By in large, those on either end of the sexual orientation spectrum they've always known what their orientation was. Sure, kids can be malleable by suggestion and a significant portion of the population has done some experimenting, but ultimately no one can convince you to be something you're not wired to be, gay, straight, or somewhere in the middle.
Finally, I'll address the other point the hard right throws at me, which is why do drag queens desperately want access to children? First, since they're not harming kids, why the fuck not? Second, put the right wing propaganda down, because it's amplifying shit that sparks fear and outrage. I'd be willing to bet that every drag queen story hour "exposed" by that stochastic terrorist bitch Chaya Raichik is literally every one that's ever taken place, which is to say very few for a country our size. Seriously, you're being played.
The takeaway for both of these cases of accused grooming is don't condemn things you're too fucking stupid to understand.
