Home Grown Stupid

So, another week, another shooting, another announcement by the Preezy.  Nothing to see here, move along, workplace violence or a marginalized soul brother.  How many times can a politician claim they are “outraged”, “shocked” or “pixilated”(well maybe not pixilated), at an “unexpected” event or tragedy.  But we have become accustomed and numbed by a leader who can't understand the motives behind these shootings, even when the shooter spends minutes or hours reciting his reasons in painful detail.

America is becoming very good at sensationalizing and dramatizing mass shootings.  Especially the media.  Politicians are even getting into the fray with outright, naked displays of ignorance to solicit gun control laws and money to support the never ending re-elections. 

But it is the responses to these atrocities that we are getting good at.  

Americans, of all stripes, are getting good at displays of outrage.  They are getting better at the little shrines constructed to commemorate the event.  They are getting even better at post-event interviews, where they can re-play the moments up to, during and after the event, while holding their latest Marks-A-Lot sign.  I always enjoy the vibrant and colorful displays of hairdos not found in nature, or anywhere else rational people choose to travel.

 

The president is getting pretty good at speeches of outrage, followed closely by calls for gun control and lowering of all flags to half-staff.  Hell, why don’t we just leave them down there, because there’ll be another event in a day or two.

And we can’t forget the Teddy Bears, usually reserved for illegal alien children, these fluffy gnomes have inexplicably stampeded onto the scenes to capture the balloons and take them away to await the next mass shooting. 

And then there is the endless analysis, by those who have never been anywhere near a gun, much less than the neighborhoods where they are used the most against folks fighting over the same turf.   Unfortunately these same analysts will ignore the inevitable strike down of some innocent child or elderly person, who has done nothing more than thrilled at the antics of Sponge Bob Square Pants or binge watched Wheel of Fortune three weeks in a row.

 

And we can’t close until we acknowledge the candle-light vigils and the moments of silence, in which we should be cleaning and reloading, to thwart the next mindless drive-by or disgruntled Black Panther, who has determined that ‘whitey’ needs to die, but has used all his little gray cells to open up his AR15 in an all-black neighborhood.