Madness and Guns

H.R. Giger




Let's talk about the gun violence in the United States, shall we?  Here in the good ole USofA, we have a plethora of gun violence because we have a love affair with guns that borders on worship.  I am saying 'we', but this is not me, yet I am a citizen of this country, so I can't distance myself from this collective nightmare.  For nefarious reasons known only to them, Republicans have embraced the maniacal tenets of the National Rifle Association where firearms meant for war are available to anyone who can pass a background check.  Can't pass a background check?  Just buy a used assault rifle from a private citizen, they don't have to do a background check.  The gun laws we must suffer under are completely and purposely devoid of logic.  And, they are not uniform but vary widely from state to state. 
The long shadow cast by the Second Amendment provides that a gun owner need not be responsible for that gun, which explains why toddlers have shot so many people this year.  I'm just going to lay this loaded gun down right here by this playpen and go take a nap...  When, how did Americans become so stupid?  Worse yet, they are PROUDLY stupid and defend it as if it's their right to be willingfully ignorant assholes who think that the solution is to arm everyone.  Yes, because having a gun in your hand when I drunken fight erupts is a good idea.
In my naivete I thought that things would change after the massacre at Columbine High School in 1999, but no.  If anything the NRA entrenched themselves further in the psyche of fear that they foster in the U.S.  But the mass shooting, and I don't mean to discount any of the mass shootings that we as a nation have endured, but the one that broke my heart, and resonates with me as raw as it did the day it happened three years ago, is the slaughter that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.  If we as a nation cannot come together and reach a consensus on what must be done to curb - if not stop - the wholesale violence that has become commonplace, after the massacre of children, then nothing will prompt action.  The vapidity of the political right always offering their prayers, and nothing else, following each shooting, should chill every person in this country to their core.
Madness reigns, and shoots.