If Not Sandy Hook, Nothing

Buffalo? Uvalde? I still haven’t wrapped my head around Sandy Hook. How about Parkland? And…… and………. Orlando……… and Denver……….. and Aurora…….. and ……… I think I’m getting them mixed up. How many died in each? You’ve got to be kidding. If I can’t remember the names and places of the mass shootings, how am I supposed to remember the death toll, let along the kids’ names.
This is America. No matter how you cut it – culture, gun availability, economic circumstances, mental status, religion,…no matter what, we come out ahead. We Americans.
There is a reason we do not want the history of this country taught in schools. Other countries slaughter each other in wars and revolutions; we do it slowly, by concert hall, dance hall, soccer game, school house, union hall, anywhere that two or more of us are gathered, there you will find an angry person with a gun, all going back to the O.K. Corral.

Our wars were primarily with scattered ethnic groups of indigenous people and the war consisted of massacring family groups, camp sites of old men and women and children. Violence was the rule not only with Native Americans but with the slaves. Day in and day out violence. And not just White on Others but White on White. The gun fights depicted in movies were not all that common but straight up shoot-outs occurred constantly. Feuds, robberies, rapes, take-overs of farms and mines, chasing competitors out of town, breaking unions…. all down with violence. Some immigrants brought it with them, primarily the Scots-Irish, but the Italians, the Chinese tongs, and other numerous secret societies. 

The mix was volatile and the patterns were set from the beginning. That is why the teaching of our history in schools is resisted. We might raise a generation that would find the status of gun cultists embarrassing and embark on an opposing paradigm of what it means to be an American. Something that doesn’t involve killing someone.

2 Comments

  1. Sandra Verbeke says:

    the gun The founding fathers shot, the Guys who put the 2nd amendment into the Constitution … that gun Shot 1 or 2 bullets per minute ……

    These AR -15, 16 , which ever Assault style MILITARY guns being shot in Mass MURDERs now, Shoot HUNDREDs of Rounds per Minute…. MULTIPLE Hundreds of Bullets Each Minute…….

    how in hell does Anyone vote for ANY ” nra Party / that 94% of the gop belong to…. how does anyone in the general public vote for ANY repub again, ??

    UNTIL gun laws are REFORMED,
    UNTIL Women have rights over Our bodies,,,
    UNTIL VOTING RIGHTS are Had By Every Single Citizen of this country,
    UNTIL ,,, so many “Until’s” ………….

    UNTIL the Domestic Terrorists stop holding us hostage,,,,
    UNTIL the S.COURT is abolished …. No 9 people Should ever be able to make LAW for 300 Million persons….

    UNTIL #45 Rump is Held Accountable and IN PRISON for the 1,400 Felonies hE committed Against this Nation

    UNTIL Texas ELECTS some Person with Morals and Ethics, AND has a Caring Conscience for other things than their power hungry Pocket Books.

  2. Pat Barrett says:

    Your untils are going to have a long wait. I’m thinking at this point that some form of social mobilization is the only thing that will save the country as a whole; otherwise I think we’re headed “into the abyss” as the title of one book I’m reading has it or some sort of sorting process with the wealthy, high-education states gradually pulling away from supporting the poor, low-education states (ever wonder why there is so little tracing back the way those states are clustered in the South and the Civil War?).
    Until then…………… arrivederci. Ci vedremo in Italia.

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