Yesterday. Winder, Georgia. Another city. Another town. Another school. Another Columbine. Another Stoneman Douglas High. Another Robb Elementary. Another and another and another.
In Washington, D.C., a Republican Congressman spent the night in his Congressional office. He got down on his knees and prayed. I can imagine what he said when he heard about the school shooting in his own elected district.
“Oh, Lord,” he mouthed, his hands clasped and his head bowed, “Please make sure that lots of kids get killed by that person with the AR-15. That way, the National Rifle Association can scare more people into buying their guns, and the NRA will kick back lobbying money to me and to my cronies. In your name I pray, Amen.”
At the same time, another Congress member – again from Georgia – got on her knees and prayed that whoever the shooter was who murdered four people and wounded nearly a dozen others, she prayed that that shooter be an immigrant. Preferably an illegal one. She prayed while doing her usual routine of push-ups, squat thrusts and knuckle-dragging grunts, while at the same time hoping nobody saw that old video of hers where she auctioned off a .50 caliber assault weapon.
And at the same time, deep in the heart of Colorado, another Republican Congresswoman got on her knees and prayed that, if God would listen to her, that He would make the shooter a trans person. Trans man or trans woman, it wouldn’t matter to her. As far as she’s concerned, the kids murdered in a school shooting are just “a drop in the bucket.” Heck, she said so.
And at the same time, another man – this time a candidate for President – passed along a social media message of thoughts and prayers, while at the same time hoping that nobody finds that video where he just told people whose lives were destroyed by yet another school shooting to “get over it.”
I’m writing this because yesterday, someone went into a school and started shooting, and didn’t stop until two students and two teachers were slaughtered. Their lives ended. No reset. No “put another quarter in and start life over” concept. The magical synergy of life was ripped away from these sons and daughters, never to return. And for what? FOR WHAT? So that some fucking fucktard can gain a reputation as a school shooter? To have their name chanted as an inspiration for the next school shooter?
And before anybody searches for failures in response or in protection, let me say this. The school SRT’s moved into action as quickly as they could and they forced the shooter to surrender. The school went into a hard lockdown as quickly as possible. They did everything by the book – and four people STILL lost their lives.
Listen carefully to me. It’s not mental illness. It’s not ideology. It’s the guns. It’s the guns. It’s the mother-fucking guns. And don’t give me any horseshit about how this isn’t the time to deal with this crisis when an act of senseless violence just happened so recently. Well, when’s the god damned time to actually fucking DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT?
Ban the fucking weapons of war in civilian hands. Make background checks nationwide. Close the gun show loopholes. End modifications like 3-D ghost gun printing and bump stock modifications. And get these fucked-up gun fetishist elected officials out of elected office, because obviously the only people they kowtow to is the National Rifle Association and the gun manufacturers, and to all the people that they can exploit with gun tragedies to advance their racist, bigoted, prejudiced, narrow-minded demagoguery.
Thoughts and prayers no longer work. If they ever did.
Because in the nearly 25 years since the Columine slaughter … our children have practiced school shooter drills to the same level as we practiced fire drills generations ago. And it’s no longer an instance of if there will be another school shooting in our time.
It’s “Why can’t we enforce the firearms rules already on the books and do something to stop this needless annihilation?”
Chuck The Writer 
And this time, the perp is a 14 year old who the FBI reportedly had “on their radar” a year ago when he was 13. The problems leading to many of these mass shootings starts at the perp’s home. If the parents are irresponsible enough to enable this sort of behavior, then, it’s just as much on them, as it is on their son.
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