I’m a senior citizen which means I’m old enough to remember when “Only In America” was more often than not a phrase used with some pride that something great that had happened actually happened here. And was unlikely to have happened in some other country. Well, the proliferation of guns and in particular those with high capacity magazines, especially military style assault weapons has forever changed things. I never had kids and when I think we now have multiple generations that have grown up practicing active shooter drills in SCHOOL I’m glad of that fact.
Another fact is this. Whenever someone in this country leaves their home, whether to go to school, or to the store, out to eat, meet up with friends in some public space or even goes for a walk or run they face the quite real and ever increasing possibility of some murderous person with a gun killing them. Or killing others in front of them. Or being wounded, sometimes grievously. We’ve gotten to the point where people who’ve survived one mass shooting event only to be caught up in another one! And though the mass shooting in Las Vegas today has been dominating news already virtually forgotten is that Vegas had another mass shooting last week!Â
Today the Senate blocked consideration of a bill Majority Leader Schumer put up that would reinstate the 1994 assault weapons ban that the GOP under the Bush 43 administration allowed to expire. The bill also provided for universal background checks on firearms purchases, something 90% of the country agrees with! Shortly after three people died and a fourth is in the hospital from the mass shooting in Las Vegas. I happened to see a clip of GA Senator Raphael Warnock’s eloquent advocacy for the bill. He noted the same thing I said in the title. He gave numbers, as in 630 mass shootings (the one in Las Vegas was yet to happen) in 340 days so far this year. Ok, so it’s not quite at two per day but it’s damned close.
Only in America.
Only America is awash in so many firearms. Only in America is there ready access to military style assault weapons and high capacity magazines for them and for semi-auto handguns. I grew up hunting and if physically able I’d be spending a couple of days a week a little over an hour north of where I live deer hunting with my ex in-laws on that family’s land just over the border in Virginia. I carried the M-16 when I was on active duty in the Marines. I know it and subsequent derivatives and the semi-auto civilian versions of military assault weapons are NOT hunting rifles. They were designed for one specific purpose. To kill other human beings.
As for the M-16 and semi-auto AR-15 variant sold to civilians (and newer American weapons similar) the velocity of the rounds, some 450-500 feet per second faster than the AK-47 create a LOT of tissue damage. It’s a matter of wound ballistics as that extra speed of the bullet creates what trauma surgeons call wound cavitation. Meaning instead of damage to tissue only slightly larger than the diameter of the bullet the tissue damage is FOUR INCHES wide along the wound track. THAT for those of you who don’t know can ruin a lot of deer meat if the bullet some Rambo wannabe uses his AR-15 for hunting hits a shoulder or hindquarter. Or after hitting a rib starts tumbling around inside and destroys a lot of the edible meat from the inside!
No folks. Claiming these weapons are “hunting rifles” is bullsh*t from Rambo wannabes who have serious feelings of inadequacies about the size of their dicks. Or boobs. (Yes, there are women gun goobers out there) Can all this carnage be eliminated with so many guns now out there? Of course not. But we CAN and we SHOULD be taking steps we can to reduce that carnage. And today the Senate (Republicans) blocked it. Right before more people dies in yet another mass shooting.
Almost two per day this year. Anyone out there doubt that next year we’ll blow right past that rate, and maybe get close to if not past three a day? Only in America. That’s a distinction I’d rather our country not have. Not on this.
As for the whole (again) Thoughts and prayers pablum from conservative I say this:
GOD ISN”T LISTENING!
So STFU with your “thoughts and prayers, tell the gun lobby and gun goobers to shove their guns up their a$$es and help us start reducing the magnitude of the violence that is an epidemic.
Until we have to use ‘thoughts and prayers’ over DEAD republican lawmakers…it won’t change. When THEY HAVE TO PAY for the carnage, I’d be willing to bet they’d have a change of heart. Unfortunately, it seems to be human nature not to give a shit until it affects us directly, much less if you’re REWARDED with blood money, as they are.
thoughts and prayers
Glad I don’t have kids, but if I did, I would sure as sh*t not raise them in this savage country.
If you want back-ground & common sense Gun control, please VOTE Blue! It’s the only way, WE can stop this murder of innocent people in America!