Sunday, February 18, 2018

Thoughts and Prayers Aren't Working...


We need to try something new....

Another day, another mass-shooting in America.  A deranged young man with access to guns.   And in most cases, these people who collect arsenals of guns and who are obsessed with guns are batshit crazy.   We can't stop selling guns to crazy people because they are the best customers!  It's time we realized that "gun nuts" are nuts, period, and this will never stop unless we change something.

But you know the routine.   Or you should by now.  Barely two months into 2018, there have been 18 school shootings alone, or about three a week.   And in each case, the same old process is played out.  The press reports breathlessly about the shooter (glamorizing him in the eyes of other potential school shooters).   The GOP and NRA give "thoughts and prayers" to victims and their families and castigate anyone for talking about gun control "at a time like this!"

The press continues to glamorize the shooter, with article after article about what was going through his mind, an intimate detailed biography of every incident in his life, and of course, weeping parents who say they "never saw this coming!" and they are the real victims here (if they weren't shot first, that is).

A week goes by and we see the "who were the victims?" articles, but we never click on these, do we?  Maybe a week later, a tearful article about some victim who had high hopes to be accepted at college or had a football scholarship all lined up.   We rarely click on those as well.

Meanwhile the memorial is set up, with flowers and teddy bears and cards and flags - as if this will somehow make it right.  The authorities later on remove the mounds of decaying flowers and mildewed stuffed animals with a front-end loader.

And... it's back to business as usual.  More guns sold to mentally ill people, using a background check system intentionally hobbled by the NRA -  and organization that has fought to allow convicted criminals and mentally ill people to be able to obtain firearms.

How can you tell if someone is mentally ill and trying to buy a gun?   It isn't that hard - check their closet for an arsenal of weapons.   Mentally healthy people don't have a need to hoard guns.   And I am not talking about gun collectors with a carefully curated collection of antique firearms in glass cases.  I am talking about the 20-something dude with guns leaning up against the wall of his closet, or arranged on the bed for a snapchat photo.  You know exactly what I am talking about - and those who claim not to, are lying.

So, nothing will get done, other than more "free flowers."

And it will continue to be this way, so long as people vote Republican.

By the way, in the 240 year history of this country, was there ever a time when politicians of either party "took away our guns?"