I needed to get out of the neighborhood for a while this afternoon so I took a River Ride. I wasn’t totally paying attention to the radio at first but NPR was talking about something at an elementary (?) school in Texas. As I was tuning my brain into it, I eventually processed that a shooting had left two students dead with 14 at a hospital. By the time I got home that had been revised to *14* dead students and a teacher and I have no clue if it has changed again since then.

How many mass shootings have happened in the last week? It feels like they are happening every other day now. I could look up the facts and statistics about this but I know that others will do it for me. Will the US president’s main job become traveling to mass shooting sites to offer condolences since they are happening so frequently?

Thoughts and prayers? I’ll guess that there are some victims’ family members who appreciate prayers. I am NOT religious and therefore would not be among them. If a family member of mine ever succumbed to a mass shooting, I would be CURSING whatever god people worship. Thoughts? I’m not sure what that even means. Are the “thoughts people” setting aside a time each day to sit around and think about mass shooting victims? There’s a long list at this point.

Again. I am a gun owner albeit by inheritance. I have never shot or handled a gun except to gingerly pack some rifles into the POC once. I’d like to get rid of most of my guns but this isn’t really about taking away anybody’s guns. I wish we could keep guns out of the hands of nutso people. But we can’t with internet shopping and parents who think going to shooting ranges with their disturbed teenage child is “bonding” and elected officials who post pictures of their whole families holding guns around the xmas tree. And how can we identify people of any age who are at risk of going “postal” in such a horrifying way.

Although pro-choice is my hot-button issue at the moment (and always will be), I will NOT EVER vote for political candidates who aren’t interested in coming up with reasonable laws for selling and purchasing guns. I know that we can’t ensure that a deranged person won’t get hold of a gun (one that can kill 14 children in a manner of minutes) but we have to try. I do not care how many thoughts and prayers they send to victims’ families. Those are worthless.

P. S. 18 children dead and the shooter also killed his grandmother(?)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 24th, 2022 at 6:35 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.