Not Enough Dead...

...For ANY Change

Even though it falls on deaf and dumb (as in stupid) ears, we have to keep saying it.  It's the guns.  It's the guns.  It's the guns.  It's the guns.

So Wednesday, Sept 4, at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, a fourteen-year-old boy came to school with an AR style rifle, killed two students, two teachers and wounded nine others. 

I actually had to scroll down a bit in the NY Times to get the details.  Too few casualties for top billing.  The kid only broke a state record for school shootings; would have been an also-ran in Colorado or Texas or Florida or Connecticut.  What a poser.

But here's the deal.  By all accounts, school and police response was perfect; instant lockdown, lightning quick law enforcement arrival, shooter disarmed and arrested.  No indication that anyone could have done anything different from the moment of first shots fired through the arrest.

Again.  Perfect response.  Two teachers and two fourteen year old boys dead; nine more injured.  Perfect response.

And this kid had been investigated around a year ago because of reports on a gaming site that he had made the threat.  He was questioned along with his father (who was later charged with murder as well).  He denied that he had posted the threat; his dad said there were guns in the house, used for hunting, but the boy didn't have access to them.  Turns out Dad gave Kid an AR for Christmas.  Deck the halls.

I need one of you genius "Second Amendment advocates" to make a cogent rebuttal to this simple statement: If no kids have access to guns, no kids will shoot up schools. Or even this: If kids have access to some guns, but not to rapid-fire guns with high-capacity magazines, they won't be able to kill as many of their fellow students.  Or teachers.

Want "sensible" gun laws?  Get rid of guns.

Look, I'll give it to hunters.  I grew up in hunting country and there were plenty of folks in our town who hunted to eat, and they ate what they killed.  Beyond that, We. Don't. Need. Guns.  They exist for our entertainment.  I could accommodate that if they were used them for nothing but target practice at a licensed shooting range, and left at said shooting range. Beyond that, it's hard to make a case that our "entertainment" trumps our kids living in fear, and survivors living in anguish.

Even folks on my side of the political spectrum say there are so many guns in this country that it would be virtually impossible to get rid of them.  Tell you what, it would be far more possible to get rid of guns than it will ever be to predict the next shooter.  People, the idea of tackling this problem from the standpoint of "mental health" is nothing more than psychological (or even physical) masturbation.  Feels good in the moment, but the urge is back in the morning.

We start with assault weapons.  Do as six-month to a year buy-back at top price, then each and every time one shows up, it's confiscated.  We don't have to arrest or fine the owner, just take the gun and melt that baby down.  From there we go down the chain from most to least deadly.  Same deal.  Buy back, then confiscate.  I get it; we're probably talking at least two generations, which means if we really give a shit about our kids, then this generation of kids' grandkids will feel, and be safe going to school. 

The You-can't-tell-me-how-I-can-protect-my-family argument is non-sensical (read stupid).  The Protection-against-a-traitorous-government argument is even more non-sensical (read stupid).  Your government has bunker-buster bombs.  Your government has nuclear warheads.  Your government has tanks and war planes. You don't have any of those things.

There are human beings in Winder, Georgia who will never feel safe again.  Any hopes the parents of Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo had for those fourteen-year-old boys up to the morning of September 5, are crushed.  Done.  The families and loved ones of Cristina Irimie and Richard Aspinwall are as of the morning of September 5, without them forever.  With us in the morning, gone forever by afternoon.  Fucking done!

I keep hearing how upward of seventy percent of American citizens want "sensible" gun laws, but that our elected officials, predominantly on the right, are "beholden to the gun lobby."  Vote them out!  At the polls, this is a one-issue matter; and the good news is, vote as if it's a one issue matter and you get freebees: You get women's right to choose back.  You get to keep your health care.  You get a higher tax rate on the fabulously-well-to-do - who by the way want for nothing - and no increase or a reduction in yours.

I get it.  I'm peeing into the wind here.  Far more intelligent and influential American human beings have made stronger cases, yet the majority of members of the Supreme Court of the United States won't even stand against bump stocks.  I'm left wishing that every child killed in a school shooting from here on out is the child of a right-wing gun nut.  It's a horribly unfair thought; it's certainly not the fault of those kids that their parents are assholes, but all evidence points to the certainty that members of the politically hard right change only when they are affected personally...if even then.  And if there were to be a silver lining around that mythical silver lining it would be that so many kids grow up to be like their parents - as evidenced by the Trumps - so we would be culling into the future.