It’s Groundhog Day in gun-crazy USA. Another school shooting. Another teenage boy with a military-style rifle. And another round of “thoughts and prayers” from politicians who could actually do something about this madness but won’t. This time, it’s a 14-year-old in Georgia, whose resume now includes the murder of four innocent people at Apalachee High School. The NRA can take a bow for schooling yet another mass shooter. He is the youth the NRA has groomed…
Meanwhile, as they invariably do, the media are rewarding this psychotic kid by giving him the fame he coveted. They made his mugshot go viral faster than you can say “AR-15.” Now they’re reporting pop psychology about why and how he did his dastardly deed, scavenging his social media accounts for missed clues and a motive.
Except, knowing the motive of a mass shooter has never stopped another mass shooting. And, in this age of instant celebrity, it’s all too clear why some copycat kid would find this route to infamy irresistible. But the media couldn’t care less. This is good TV.
I’ve been pleading for nearly two decades that we should limit what we say about these losers to: “May God have mercy on your soul as you burn in hell.” But, hey, what do I know. Frankly, the only socially redeeming value is that this kid looks like he could be Kyle Rittenhouse’s younger brother — the kind of all-American boy the NRA salivates over in their dystopian vision of gun rights.
That’s why the real tragedy isn’t that he pulled the trigger. It’s that America mass-produces kids like him. They’re not lone wolves. They’re a byproduct of a culture obsessed with guns and notoriety. Yet we never learn. School’s out!
