Hideous Memes

Earlier tonight, the unaltered meme picture was posted by a good friend, who is big 2nd Amendment advocate and history major.   In other words, he should have known better than to fucking post this, but what can you do?

In my case, I re-posted the picture on my wall with my rebuttal and found a less disgusting version of the meme for this post.  You can find the creator at their blog- Trying to Fill the Unforgiving Minute which is well worth reading as well.  

Image Source: http://a-wordsmith.blogspot.com/2013/02/someone-on-internet-is-wrong.html

Not reposting this for the usual reasons but rather because I'd be wrong not too.

This meme is hideous.  It's trivialising two separate but equally tragic events in order to promote gun rights.   Now, I'm all for a strong 2nd Amendment and responsible gun use.   Scaremongering, however, is a different story- that gets me pissed.  Especially when it not only get things WRONG but also uses such horrible, horrible examples to try and make it's point.

In this case:  There was no "school shooting" in 1890.  This meme has already failed to make it's point about not forgetting history since the author certainly forgot his.  
The Wounded Knee Massacre is the event described in this meme and was the last battle of the American Indian Wars to quote Wikipedia.   To say it was a "Battle" is as shameful as the US government's treatment of the native tribes at the time.

A detachment of the 7th US Cavalry had intercepted a band of Lakotas and escorted them to Wounded Knee Creek on the reservation.  There the Lakotas were to be disarmed.  There are many different accounts as to what happened next, but as tension escalated a shot was fired and the troops opened fire on the group.  The US  troops shot so indiscriminately that they killed many of their own men.   The Lakotas were beyond decimated and although the numbers vary, 290 dead is probably pretty close.

This was a shameful event, a massacre of innocents committed by the US military and government.   Comparing this event to that of a school shooting, as the meme does, is doing nothing more than implying that all of these events were caused by the US Government.  A deceitful move that only serves to drum up an emotional response instead of a more reasoned one.