'What the hell is wrong with us?'
Another mass shooting, this one in San Jose, Calif.
On Wednesday, after a San Jose public transit employee opened fire and killed eight other employees at the Valley Transportation Authority, California Gov. Gavin Newsom spoke for all of us:
“You know, pick a state. And here we are in the United States of America where we are experiencing something that is just not experienced anywhere else in the world. There is a sameness to this. And that numbness, I think, is something we are all feeling. All of us gathered here today, looking at the scene, listening to governors, mayors, chiefs, speaking, similar tone and terms, expression of condolences, all the right emotions and perhaps the right words, but it begs the damn question; What the hell is wrong in the United States of America? What the hell is wrong with us?”
This was the nation’s 232nd mass shooting this year. For perspective on how gun-violent we are, go here, and hold your cursor over the various countries on the map. In this arena, we do, in fact, exhibit American exceptionalism. We have more than eight times the rate of deaths by gun violence than Canada, and nearly 100 times that of the United Kingdom. In fact, even pandemic shut-downs didn’t slow down the rate at which we kill each other with guns.
Meanwhile, Texas is trying to relax its already loose gun laws, the tragically-ignorant Florida Gov. Roy DeSantis has made it more difficult for communities to pass gun laws in his state, and the NRA remains a lying sac of blood-garglers. They posted this drivel in March.
Authorities say the alleged shooter — who appears to have also set charges around the area prior to killing his colleagues — turned a gun on himself.
So yes. Let’s ask the questions: What the hell is wrong with us? Are we to expect this every day? Twice a day?
However we answer those questions, we must, as Pres. Biden says, do more. Do not listen to the tired lie that gun laws make us less safe. Do not listen to the lie that the only thing to stop a bad guy with a gun is another guy, also armed.
We could start with more of these. Or we can start here.
Greed & maintaining power are more attractive than saving lives to too many people in legislative positions. They should all be wearing "I really don't care" jackets, because they really don't care about any of the rest of us. I just wish the ignorant voters would see them for who they really are.
I've been thinking about how little I now hear people earnestly quoting Robert A. Heinlein: "An armed society is a polite society."
Maybe we'll start really adjusting to a new form of manners that involves lots of menacing-with-guns, at home and abroad. That would be the American way.