'The problem is the human heart. It's not guns.'

[AnrothElf]

“The end of the day, it’s, the problem is the human heart. It’s not guns. It’s not the weapons. At the end of the day, we have to protect the right of the citizens to protect themselves, and that’s the Second Amendment.”

— House Speaker Mike Johnson, asked by Fox News’s Sean Hannity about demands for more gun laws or more legislation in the wake of mass shootings

Human hearts! That is the problem! In America, we are uniquely badly positioned because of our human hearts. Why don’t we have stone hearts like the French; or efficient, wood-burning hearts like the Germans; or the Teflon hearts that I hear Elon Musk will soon be pioneering to an elite crowd of subscribers? (I, for one, cannot wait! Anything to divert his attention from X!) Why don’t we have alien hearts with extra ventricles, splendidly green and impervious to pain; or efficient, 3D-printed e-hearts; or anatomically inaccurate paper hearts? So many better kinds of hearts to have! It isn’t the guns. The problem is the human heart. Week, feeble, pitiful heart. Put it up against a gun, and it loses every time.

The problem is the human heart. Gun violence is an unchangeable, immutable fact of the human condition. That is why it is localized so strongly to this country and this time period. This is not a problem with a solution. It is the price you pay for being human. This is not unique to the United States, although you see it only here. Maybe it’s something to do with the water. Not laws, though; as we know from our efforts to impose vicious lawsuits and increasingly draconian restrictions against anyone who seeks an abortion, it is pointless to legislate about a problem. Some things, you are just born with and must accept; guns are one of them.

...

MORE (Alexandra Petri): https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/27/mike-johnson-problem-human-heart-gun-violence-satire/

A great example of the power of satire.

[brush]

1. "The problem is the human heart..." Such ridiculous bullshit.

The problem is the guns in the human hand. Republicans need to get off the NRA payroll and pass some sensible gun control laws like background checks, red flag laws, waiting periods, AND BRING BACK THE ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN.

It's not that complicated. Australia did it in 1996 and hasn't had a mass shooting since.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

2. The entire Republican party is so radicalized that it can no longer acknowledge reality.

[Srkdqltr]

3. Ok... so.. he knows the cause. What does he propose to do?

Weii like everything else...... nothing.... just bitch about it. That is all anyone is capable of doing.

[usonian]

4. There is no problem. When those hard hearts are armed with bananas instead of guns.

Now, watch them outlaw bananas.

[llashram]

5. this Johnson Speaker

bodes ill when he gets used to wielding that gavel... many many more of these from gun violence in America.

[yardwork]

12. It might be good to have it out in the open.

As with DeSantis, I think the more Americans see and hear Johnson, the less they'll like him. And they might think twice about the Republican Party as a result.

[mitch96]

6. 'The problem is the human heart. It's not guns.' ........until you get shot with an M-16 and your heart stops..

. MiJohnson is an feenken eEjit
m

[Midnight Writer]

7. Is he saying that the human hearts of Americans are worse than the hearts of other people?

Because the people of other prosperous nations don't have the problem of mass shootings every single day.

Do they not have mentally ill, video games , violent films, drugs and alcohol, evolution taught in schools, and whatever else the excuse of the day for gun violence is?

I reckon our new speaker has a negative few of the Americans he serves.

[Takket]

8. something I read today......

"If people are the problem, not guns, why the fuck would anyone give the problem guns?"

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. I wonder if he'd say the same thing if his kid

had been one of those murdered in the bowling ally.

[sanatanadharma]

10. The problem IS in the heart where desires arise and ...

The problem IS in the heart where desires arise and destroy.

The use of the gun follows the getting of the gun.
The getting of the gun follows the desire for a gun.
The desire for a gun follows the 'teachings' of mass-marketing-moral-madness-malignancy in the USA.

The problem is in the human heart that thinks murder is OK if I don't die.
Fear, self-defensiveness, anger, violence nourish the desire that rises saying,"ME", not 'we', not thee.

[yardwork]

11. Gross. What an offensive thing to say.

He should speak for himself.