The Hell We Chose

Almost exactly two years ago in this space, Dear Readers, I lied to you in a post titled, The Last Time I'm Going to Write on This Topic. In that post, I laid out what I felt was an even-handed and honest summary of the pros and cons of our worship of the Second Amendment, and said I was through with writing on the topic because I was tired of being treated like the village idiot by my most conservative readers and friends. Nevertheless, since October 5, 2015, I've written on the topic many times.

Since October 5, 2015, we've had 14 people murdered at a Christmas party in San Bernardino (December 15, 2015), 49 people murdered at a gay nightclub in Orlando (June 12, 2016), and now nearly 60 people murdered at a music festival in Las Vegas (October 1, 2017). After each of those incidents (and all the other ones with less horrendous body counts), this is what happened: there were candlelight vigils; politicians spouted platitudes; heaps of flowers and teddy bears appeared at the sites of the murders; the gun industry denied any responsibility and shed crocodile tears; and outrage was expressed in the news media.

That's all.

Vigils. Platitudes. Flowers. Teddy Bears. Denials and Crocodile Tears. Outrage.

No solutions. Not even an acknowledgement that there's a problem. In fact, Republican members of Congress have repeatedly blocked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from spending any public money on studying any relationship between the proliferation of guns and public health.

Nothing to see here, folks ... just move along. There'll be another coming along soon.

Yesterday I saw this comment on Twitter: "Children died at Sandy Hook & a competent president couldn't push through gun control. We live here now. This is the hell we chose."

This is the hell we chose.

Twenty children were murdered in cold blood at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December, 2012. If we couldn't grow the balls (or the ladies, the ovaries) to face up to that unimaginable horror, we well and truly deserve the hell we have chosen.

I hope you enjoy it more than I do.

Have a good day. Be safe. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo