"Find yourself a lover who looks at you the way Republicans look at guns. That would be my relationship advice to you...."
They were 9 years old.
And they are the so-called "price of freedom".
Once again America mourns. And at the same time shrugs its collective shoulders.
The national press rushed to Nashville, but in a few days you won't even know they were there. That's about how long these things last in 21st century memory. Maybe a week. It all depends on how long it takes to put the funerals together. The cameras like to stay for those. Pictures of flowers and stuffed bears are nice. Perhaps an occasional VIP will drop by. In Newtown President Obama showed up. And cried. That was quite a moment, eh? Then he dried his eyes and left..and it was like he was never there at all.
Maybe Biden will go to Nashville. He'll say all the right things, because he's not a fucking dolt like the last guy. But he's holding a wolf by the ears. The days of a President bringing a nation together via rhetoric, as Reagan and Clinton did, and as George W did at ground zero, are over. They even get heckled during state of the union speeches now. Congress has been overtaken by hyenas. Biden is powerless, and he knows it. Republicans control the Congress, and Democrats don't have 60 votes in the Senate. It's a numbers game. Drag queens? NO. Guns? YES.
Find yourself a lover who looks at you the way Republicans look at guns. That would be my relationship advice to you.
“I would say we’ve gone about as far as we can go – unless somebody identifies some area that we didn’t address..." was the word for word response to the shooting from a Republican Senator from Texas...which is sort of the banality of evil in a soundbyte.
Yes Senator. We've addressed the dead children before. They are just not worthy.
The Tennessee congressman who represents the district of the shooting sent out 2021 Christmas cards featuring a pic of he and his wife and kids standing in front of the tree holding the kinds of guns favored by school shooters...so not sure how he'd be welcome into the maelstrom right now. But you never know. He has already sent his "thoughts and prayers", via a Tweet of course, (hard to convey T & Ps any other way) so maybe an onsite visit would be redundant.
“The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference — they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good," the caption of aforementioned the Christmas photo read. Ho Ho Ho.
Cue the collective cringe.
Yesterday the Congressman, without comment, removed the pic from his Facebook page.
And in a way....he's a fucking moderate. At least he's not calling for MORE guns, like some of his colleagues are. Or blaming side doors and pronouns.
But the victims. Their names are Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney. You won't remember the names because there's too many to remember. But there's always Wikipedia if you want to be reminded. Yesterday's shooting already has its own entry there. The children's names were released to the public right around the time school should have been letting out. Right after photos showing children being led, ring-around-the-rosie style, out of the school to safety. We've seen this photo before. It’s a uniquely American thing.
Three adults as well. Cynthia Peak, 61, Katherine Koonce, 60, and Mike Hill, 61. They most likely helped these children through past active shooter drills. Previous generations dove underneath desks to escape the nukes from the Reds.....but now the enemy is internal. We've turned on each other so savagely that diving under desks is no longer enough. Desks now need to be piled up in front of doors, to keep our own neighbors out.
We know the damage a high powered assault rifle can do to a little body. We've seen this before. Newtown. And most recently, Uvalde. If children being ripped apart....literally...doesn't move the needle, that means it's game over. And it is over. I've said this before. Repeatedly. Sandy Hook was the tipping point. Slaughtered 6 year olds. They had to be pieced back together for the funerals. It was so manically evil that no rational nation would accept it.
And that remains true. But we are not a rational nation. We are a nation driven by fear and grievance and wholesale ignorance.....represented by a pack of relentless grifters. If we had such a thing as a moral compass, it will blown apart that day at Sandy Hook Elementary. All that's left now is the body count. And really… “thoughts and prayers” is almost snarky at this point. It’s more like trolling the libs than anything.
Sometimes I think letting go of your child’s hand so they can get on the school bus has become an act of faith. We accept this. That’s how warped we’ve become.
A woman named Ashbey Beasley, who escaped the July Fourth mass shooting last year in Highland Park, Illinois, was visiting Tennessee on a family trip when Monday’s shooting occurred. She jumped uninvited into a live television feed and asked, “How is this still happening? Why are our children still dying?”
And then…"Aren't you guys tired of being here and having to cover all of these mass shootings?"
I don’t know. Are they?
Beasley was supposed to have lunch with a friend whose son was killed in a mass shooting at a Waffle House in Antioch, Tennessee, five years ago. The friend called to cancel. Her living son was currently on lock down in a nearby Nashville school.
What it boils down to, as always, is this.
Does your right to own an AR-15 type weapon supplant the rights of Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney to attend school and come home alive?
It's a yes/no question. Only one word answers would be accepted. And if I was a reporter that's the question I would ask.
It’s the only one that matters.
In a bit...
--tf