Criticizing Hillary Clinton has been a regular pastime for a large swathe of America for the past two or three decades, and that doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon.
Not even following the horrific Mandalay Bay massacre in Las Vegas that killed 58 and injured more than 500.
Critics claim that Hillary’s tweet following the massacre was overly political and displayed “ignorance” of firearms. Did it?
Those who were still up on Sunday night and those waking up to terrible news on Monday morning expressed their reactions to the absolute horror of the shooting in Las Vegas.
Everyone on Twitter, from big-name celebrities to friends to coworkers to that one guest star you thirst-followed three years ago, was speaking out.
Those who couldn’t find the words themselves retweeted those who could.
Hillary Clinton, the 2016 candidate preferred by the majority of American voters and regarded by many as America’s monarch-in-exile, tweeted appropriately.
“Las Vegas, we are grieving with you — the victims, those who lost loved ones, the responders, & all affected by this cold-blooded massacre.”
We all saw the horrifying videos and heard the unmistakable sounds of gunfire. Hillary did, too, and followed up her tweet with this:
“The crowd fled at the sound of gunshots. Imagine the deaths if the shooter had a silencer, which the NRA wants to make easier to get.”
We’ll talk about that bill, don’t you worry.
“Our grief isn’t enough. We can and must put politics aside, stand up to the NRA, and work together to try to stop this from happening again.”
Obviously, this was the cue to everyone who’s ever read a Cracked article to try to make themselves sound like an expert on firearms.
Hillary was referring to H.R.367, the almost absurdly named Hearing Protection Act of 2017.
Despite it’s name, it’s not a proposed law about noise pollution or public nuisances or hearing aids.
It’s an NRA-backed bill that would make it easier to get silencers for guns by removing restrictions on silencers so that they are regulated just like regular ol’ guns.
As you may have guessed, Hillary’s critics mocked her by pointing out that silencers don’t actually make guns silent; they just muffle the noise somewhat.
An NRA spokeswoman tweeted:
“Suppressors only reduce by a few decibels, still same decibel level as a jack hammer.”
A radio host tweeted:
“Appallingly stupid, and entirely irrelevant, Mrs Clinton She knows nothing about firearms, and even worse, she doesn’t care.”
Though Hillary’s tweet doesn’t immediately convey whether or not she’s aware that silencers do not make guns literally silent, let’s remember two things:
One, Hillary Clinton is an almost frighteningly intelligent person. That’s based on basically every interaction that she’s ever had.
Two, if gunshots are quieter, even just a little bit, that means that fewer people will be aware of them.
Have you ever been to a concert? There are absolutely concerts at which “a few decibels” could make the difference between a gunshot being audible and it going unnoticed save to those who get shot.
Countless public voices have called out for the US to actually, for once, do something to prevent future mass shootings.
Ariana Grande called for gun control, and she is obviously no stranger to terrorist attacks at concerts.
Politicians who rely upon NRA endorsements and funding continue to turn a blind eye to common-sense solutions that have been proven to work in other countries — most notably in Australia.
There are those who characterize the NRA as the greatest ally of domestic terrorists. At this point, that is getting harder and harder to dispute.
But it’s much easier for the pro-gun lobby to criticize people calling for common sense gun regulations than it is for them to explain why, exactly, massacres in which hundreds and hundreds of people are hospitalized are becoming a staple of American existence.
