there was another school shooting. we barely noticed. what the fuck is wrong with us?

there was a time when a school shooting would capture the nation’s horrified attention

America rang in the new year in the most America way possible: a teenager with some unknown grudge obtained a rifle, just as our founders intended, and took that rifle into a school, just as our founders intended, and used that rifle to shoot a bunch of children and their teachers, just as our founders intended, and the shooter ended up dead, just as our founders intended.

we barely took notice, and then we all went back to whatever we were doing.

what the fuck is wrong with us?

for an hour or two, people pretended to care.

in Iowa, where the shooting took place, the governor — who in 2021 signed a law allowing people to buy and carry handguns without a permit — made noises about oh how terrible. our hearts are broken by this senseless tragedy.

sad! so sad!

politicians bought and paid for by the NRA offered their cheap thoughts and useless prayers.

the worst fuckstains in the world spread disinformation on social media.

and then we all got on with our lives.

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there was a time not too long ago when a school shooting would capture the nation’s horrified attention for days — or weeks.

every newspaper would run full-page spreads of mourners laying flowers at the site of the shooting.

the airwaves would be full of videos of candlelit vigils.

lawmakers — at least the one the Democratic side — would call for gun control, and actually introduce legislation. they would always fail, but at least they fucking tried.

now we’re all numb to it.

we’ve given up. there’s too much on our plates. it’s just one goddamned thing after another. the arctic ice shelf is melting. half a world away, bombs are being dropped on civilians. it feels like disaster and mayhem are everywhere you turn.

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I guarantee that the landed white gentry who wrote the second amendment didn’t intend for any of this bullshit to be going on. frankly, they were more concerned with well-regulated militias being able to put down slave rebellions, because every fucking thing in America always has its roots in racism. always. you can set your watch to it.

if you had asked Ben Franklin, “yo Benny, is a teenager with a grudge a well-regulated militia?” he would have replied no, absolutely not, what the fuck is wrong with thee?

if you could have shown an AR-15 to any of our nation’s founders, they definitely would have shit their breeches and written a completely different second amendment.

how about a little sensible gun control? can we not do this one little thing, for the children?

folks, a word on a different subject before I let you go: we’re doing some quarterly fundraising at my other venture, The Smirking Chimp. I’m leery of even mentioning it because if you’re one of the people paying to support my own writing here, you’re already doing god’s work and you’re already doing more than enough to help out. but if you’ve got five dollars that you absolutely wouldn’t miss and you do feel like supporting the Chimp, well, that just makes you twice the hero. the donation link is here, or you can go straight to paypal if you need no further convincing. and if you don’t care to donate, that’s totally cool, too, and we will not speak of this again. in fact, we never had this conversation. thanks for listening and that’s it from me for now.