Smock Blogs

In 1989 Alan More convinced me that class war was inevitable, but I’d probably have to move to the UK for it, which given their predilection for beans as breakfast wasn’t in the cards. Then in 2005 V for Vendetta brought More’s graphic novel to life, and while I kept expecting Hugo Weaving to introduce Mr. Anderson, the masked man was a worthy protagonist and figurehead for doing what needed to be done to those elites seeking to oppress everyone who wasn’t them.

In 2024, the anti-hero looks like what happens when you bring a lacrosse stick to life, and has the kind of jawline that’s more Harlequin Romance than Anarchist’s Cookbook. Not that I’m condoning what Luigi Mangione did, because murder is murder, but this from Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro is a big swing the other direction.

“In America, we do not kill people in cold blood to resolve policy differences or express a viewpoint. I understand people have real frustration with our health care system, and I have worked to address that throughout my career.

But I have no tolerance, nor should anyone, for one man using an illegal ghost gun to murder someone because he thinks his opinion matters most. In a civil society, we are all less safe when ideologues engage in vigilante justice.”

Two things here:

1. The “ghost” gun
2. That this is about “policy differences”

Here’s why the governor focuses on the “ghost” gun, so called because it was a handgun that Mangione made himself, or if not him, someone else with access to a 3D printer and the blueprints: Democrats like Shapiro want to be law and order candidates just like their GOP counterparts, but don’t want to alienate those voters that think the 2nd Amendment was carved on the back side of the 10 Commandments and is therefore holy writ so owning more guns than a Somali militia is a divine right.

It’s the same reason they’ll go after the so-called “black rifles,” the AR-15 variants so popular with the kind of gun owner that does their own research and so they don’t vaccinate their kids or take care of their teeth: most gun deaths in the United States are pistol-related, and while cutting down on the number of handguns would likely mean fewer homicides and suicides, it would be political…suicide…to stand for that in the current political climate.

Pragmatic gun control, then, means going after “ghost” guns, which don’t account for nearly the same level of violence as legally owned handguns, and it’s the legislative equivalent of “thoughts and prayers”: makes people like Shapiro feel better, appeases the masses, and does no actual good.

And I’m sorry, but, “policy differences?” Describing the oppression and destruction wrought by America’s healthcare system on those subjected to a profit-driven bureaucratic behemoth like United Healthcare as a “policy difference” is like saying that the real problem with Auschwitz was that there were too many people in those railroad cars.

Yes, this is a policy problem, but it’s a matter of systemic violence on the part of corporations benefiting from our obsession with capitalism and the collusion of lawmakers afraid to take the system apart. While it pains me that it took an act of murder to bring that discussion to the forefront, love to see the receipts for how the governor has “worked to address” this issue during his time in politics. Mangione’s no hero, but Shapiro and his ilk are the cowards here, chasing ghosts instead of crafting policy that could mean real change.