It's mourning in America
Another day passes by in America and hundreds of family members are shattered by the senseless murder of nineteen innocent fourth graders and two teachers who died in a hail of gunfire from a weapon designed for war, wielded by a coward.
The latest tragedy committed by a cruel, weak, loser is just one in an endless macabre parade of death that only happens in America. It happens so often that the dead from the last 'never again' massacre are not even buried before the cycle begins anew.
There have been 288 mass shootings in U.S. in 2022 alone (28 in schools). On average, there are 1.97 mass shootings in America EVERY DAY. Most don't produce enough victims to register in the national media or public consciousness because, in the United States, the death of less than 5 human beings at the hands of a gunman is not shocking enough to warrant coverage by anyone but local news. The old maxim for news was, "If it bleeds it leads," but when rivers of blood pour from gunshot wounds of innocent victims, it appears the media and public can only absorb so much. So much blood. So much carnage. So much needless death. We have become inured to these tragedies because their sheer mass and regularity overwhelm our ability to grieve.
I have a simple suggestion for the media and law enforcement; stop referring to the pathetic animals who commit these atrocities as 'gunmen' or 'shooters.' Both of these words carry heft and prestige in the toxic masculinity of American gun culture. To be a man to too many American males is to carry or collect as many guns and rounds of ammo as possible. We see them in Walmart and Lowes; rotund middle-aged white men with a semi-auto pistol strapped to their plus-sized belts. Their beloved gun a symbol of their insecurity and fear, a lethal Viagra for the masculinely impotent; good guy gunman wannabes. I beg you to not give the murderers of innocent children, women, and men the clout they crave, call them what they are; cowards, losers, pathetic, weak, evil. Don't say their names. Deny them the infamy they covet.
The only ones weaker and more spinelessly craven than these killers are the politicians who offer nothing time after time or worse, make it easier for mass murderers to acquire high-powered weapons and ammunition designed only to kill human beings faster and more efficiently. The cowardly loser who killed nineteen 9 and 10-year-olds in Uvalde, Texas, carried two high-powered AR-style rifles, seven high-capacity magazines, and 375 rounds of ammunition. He legally purchased them days after his 18th birthday. Perhaps inspired by a tweet by Texas Governor Greg Abbot imploring Texans to buy more guns:
"I'm EMBARRASSED: Texas #2 in nation for new gun purchases, behind CALIFORNIA. Let's pick up the pace Texans," - Greg Abbott
Already, Republican politicians are on the record proudly(?) saying they will do nothing to keep this from happening again. They will block common-sense gun safety legislation supported by the vast majority of Americans to do things like ensure background checks on every gun purchaser, raise the age to buy weapons of war to 21, put in place red-flag laws to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill people and restrict the ability of people to buy weapons of mass murder. They will instead offer vacuous platitudes and useless 'thoughts and prayers'...and do nothing even after the next slaughter occurs...and repeat, ad nauseam.
If you listen closely to the hollow silence between the endless and pointless cycle of 'thoughts and prayers,' the sound of yet another feckless coward racking a .223 round into one of several million weapons of war owned by 'law-abiding citizens' will pierce the stillness, like the anguished wail of the parents of the next slaughtered child.
Written by Steven Vincent