Here we go again. Another mass shooting. Another lunatic with a gun. Another death toll of over ten people. Another scene of students huddled in terror outside a school. Another debate over guns we all know will come to naught.
Even President Obama is beginning to lose hope on this issue, this being the fifteenth mass shooting of his presidency. As he stated at a press conference this evening:
Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. We've become numb to this.
My Gut Reaction: You know things in this country are FUBAR when, upon hearing of a mass shooting, one breathes a sigh of relief that fewer than twenty were murdered.
Analysis below the fold...
As my favorite philosopher, the Joker, once put it, this is "all part of the plan." I don't mean in some idiotic, Alex Jones sense where there is a conspiracy behind the shooting and it's a "false flag operation." Mass shootings such as the tragedy at Umpqua Community College have become part of the accepted order of things in the United States. We've seen it dozens of times and will likely see it dozens more.
Mass shootings were once seen as shocking. Now, unless a truly massive number of people are killed or the shooter looks like a stereotypical terrorist, we collectively fail to bat an eye. As President Obama put it, "This is a political choice we make to allow this to happen every few months in America."
Obviously, the primary responsibility for the Umpqua tragedy lies with the shooter. However, there is a much broader field of indirect responsibility that stretches across the nation. First, our leadership in Washington bears the burden of having failed to pass sensible gun legislation, such as universal background checks and tougher bans on the mentally ill getting guns.
However, the bigger responsibility lies with the American people, especially the "gun rights" crowd, who have continued to vote in legislators that oppose gun control. They continue to send money to the National Rifle Association and fall for its constant alarmism about the government coming to seize their guns, which NOBODY is planning.
The American people, as a collective, have given an effective thumbs up to these massacres. They have the means to prevent or at least greatly reduce their occurrence, but choose not to.