"not simply red flags, but solar flares..."
There is no silence on earth deeper than the silence between gunshots
—Seamus McGraw
“From a Taller Tower - The Rise of the American Mass Shooter”
You just run out of things to say.
Last night the news popped up on my phone. Another mass shooting. This one in Lewiston, Maine. Reports were/are 16 to 22 dead, and more than 60 wounded. I turned on CNN and there he was, on various surveillance cameras, about as clear as a yearbook photo. White dude brandishing an AR-15 type rifle. He had shot up a bowling alley, and then moved on to a bar. Everybody knew who he was right away. Ex-military. A firearms instructor. A history of mental illness. Multiple arrests for domestic violence. He was hearing voices and had threatened to carry out a shooting at a National Guard Base in Saco, Maine. A neighbor said the shooter came from a family of “gun fanatics”, and “people knew to stay away from him”.
In other words, not simply red flags, but fucking solar flares. All apparently ignored long enough for him to slaughter perhaps 2 dozen people. By all means, let’s arm the guy who is hearing voices, because that’s EXACTLY what the framers of the Constitution had in mind as they were huddling with their flintlocks.
The more we allow this, the more our moral guard is pulled down.