Who's to Blame for Mass Shootings? (Hint: LADEEEEZ!)

[Content Note: Sexism, gun violence]

Well, the problem isn't Buddhism after all. It's the ladyjobs.

A former New Hampshire state senator who’s announcing his candidacy to unseat Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen says women in the workplace are at least partially to blame for mass shootings and other violence by men.

“Bottom line: the collaborative, flexible, amorphously-hierarchical American economy is shutting out ordinary men who were once the nation’s breadwinners in living-wage labor and manufacturing jobs,” wrote former state Sen. Jim Rubens in a 2009 blog post.

The original post, which is now protected behind a firewall, argues that this loss of status had provoked violence in men.

Hey ladies! Did you know that "it"="be responsible for ALL the gun violence"?

Now of course Mr. Rubens did not mean to imply that the rise of (somewhat) more female-friendly workplaces, what with their collaboration and flexibilty and (sorta-kinda-maybe) equal pay for gals ladypeople was a bad thing. NOT AT ALL. He made this totes clear on Buzzfeed:

“I don’t see anything that causes anyone to conclude I’m seeking to in any way make a claim that it’s not great that women have come up in the economy,” Rubens said. “My wife is my business partner, so I know that it’s fantastic that the economy has made a fulsome role for women as I was pointing out in the posting. We need to get manufacturing jobs back.”

See? His wife is his partner, so he is NOT SEXIST! All he wants to do is get manufacturing jobs back, because those are DUDE JOBS. Ladies, of course, have been competely unaffected by the decline in manufacturing! Also: without access to manufacturing jobs, guns magically appear in angry man-hands! Or something. All of which definitely connects in a clear and logical fashion.

Mr. Rubens, I hereby grant you the Most Creative Entry Prize in the contest for Worst GOP Avoidance of Gun Control!

I will also offer you some free advice.

1. Your derriere looks like a chapeau, and it is on your head.

2. Access to guns just might have something to do with gun violence. If this is hard to grasp, go write it out 500 times.

3. It is perfectly possible to talk about renewing manufacturing in the United States (which I support) without resorting to gender stereotypes or bizarre mass psychoanalysis (which I write snarky blogposts about).

4. LOL your gendered jobs.

5. LOL your history.

Congratulations for living up to the GOP's true heritage as the Party of Personal Responsibility! By which I mean, blaming everyone but yourselves for everything.