There had already been 17 school shootings in the United States just this year; then came this:
A heavily armed young man barged into his former high school about an hour northwest of Miami on Wednesday, opening fire on terrified students and teachers and leaving a death toll of 17 that could rise even higher, the authorities said.
(New York Times, February 14, 2018)
This is a truly dystopian sequel to the infamous Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929. But it speaks volumes about gun violence in America today that this massacre ended with 17 dead, most of them schoolchildren, whereas the one back then ended with 7 dead, most of them gangsters.
Not to mention the Groundhog-Day spectacle afoot. In fact, nothing is more despairing than watching politicians spout platitudes about gun rights, gun control, and/or mental illness after these shootings.
They affect the same emotion anew each time – complete with “heartfelt condolences” for grieving families. Yet they steadfastly refuse to do anything to stop them, which renders their words not only hollow but also hypocritical.
This is especially the case with craven, NRA-obeying Republicans. These, after all, are the sons of bitches who took pride in repealing an Obama-era regulation that made it difficult for mentally deranged people to buy guns. Now Trump is leading the chorus of these same Republicans in paying lip service to the categorical imperative of doing everything possible to prevent mentally deranged people from buying guns.
Except that this makes about as much sense as fighting the opioid epidemic by targeting small-time drug dealers who sell opioids, instead of the big-time drug companies that manufacture them. With respect to gun violence, instead of targeting the mentally ill, it clearly makes more sense to ban assault rifles and prevent gun companies from manufacturing any more.
But, as Don King, Trump’s African American, would say: “Only in America,” folks.
Meanwhile, whether attending school, a concert, or even church, no place is safe from the epidemic of gun violence in the United States.
I’m on record dismissing what politicians say in tragic times like these – as commentaries like “This Gun-Control Debate Is Insane,” April 5, 2015, attest.
This is not the commentary to delve into the gun debate. But I cannot overstate that blaming the scourge of mass shootings in America on mental illness is rather like blaming the scourge of drug trafficking on poverty.
Everyone knows the most effective way to stop mass shootings is to stop gun manufacturers from peddling assault weapons the way cartels traffick drugs. I have written about this cause and effect in many commentaries, including “NRA Cares No More about Gun Violence than Drug Cartels Do,” June 17, 2014.
This is why I think it’s time for gun-control activists to adopt the bloody tactics of anti-fur activists. Namely, they should seek out politicians who oppose gun-control measures (at the behest of their NRA paymasters) and douse them with red paint, symbolizing the blood of schoolchildren they have on their hands.
All else is folly. And nothing is more so than the wallowing media coverage that invariably attends these mass shootings.
I don’t know why the media always reward these psychotic people by giving them the fame they covet; that is, by plastering their pathetic mugs all over television and on the front page of every major newspaper … worldwide, and reporting pop psychology about why and how they did their dastardly deeds. Isn’t it clear to see, especially in this age of instant celebrity, why some loser kid would find this route to infamy irresistible?
You’d think – given the record of these psychotic and vainglorious episodes since Columbine – that we would have figured out by now that the best way to discourage them is by focusing our attention on the victims and limiting what we say about the shooter to: May God have mercy on your soul as you burn in hell!
(“Massacre in Omaha,” The iPINIONS Journal, December 7, 2007)
And:
No less a folly … is the way law-enforcement officials hold rolling news conferences to do little more than pat themselves on the back, or the way news organizations feature lucky survivors regaling us with tales of their harrowing heroics.
(“Target Las Vegas: Another Mass Shooting in Gun-Crazy USA,” The iPINIONS Journal, October 2, 2017)
So until the next mass shooting interrupts 24-7 coverage of the scandals and blunders of the Trump presidency.
Related commentaries:
Gun Crazy USA…
Gun control debate insane…
NRA like Drug cartels…
Target Las Vegas…
Orlando Shooting…