I don’t mean to sound jaded about it, but really, what is there to learn here? What new insights can be gained from any of this?
These things happen with such depressing regularity that they’re almost part of the background noise. We can go on about the Second Amendment, and the intent of its framers, and the context within which it was drafted. We can go on about the extent to which lobby groups like the National Rifle Association have captured America’s legislative institutions and defined cultural parameters. We can go on about how weapons have become tied to a warped notion of patriotism. We can go on about the uniquely American mixture of religion, rugged individualism, paranoia, violence, racism, patriarchy, wilful ignorance, and deliberate cultivation of stupidity, wedded to easy access to firearms …
… but really, what the hell’s the point? What useful question is going to emerge from that? What lessons are going to come from this that haven’t already issued from the last time, or the time before that, or the time before that …
America is Krazy Glued to its gun culture. There is nothing we can do about it. There is nothing they can do about it either. We can laugh, uneasily, at the “God Guts and Guns” and “From My Cold Dead Hands” memes, and mock morans like Walt Wawra, but change America’s fascination with firearms? Forget it.
Sandbag the border. Contain the stupidity and don’t let it spread. And offer asylum to any sane Americans who want to escape.
Related posts:
- Americans and their gun fetish – setting things right | h/t @TomTomorrow
- One U.S. pastor’s explanation for the Colorado shootings | #uspoli #WTF
- Yes, please – let’s have more American-style politics up here | #WarOnWomen
- Jay Townsend, GOP Spokesman: ‘Let’s Hurl Some Acid At Those Female Democratic Senators’