I stole the featured image from the Texas Gun Experience in Grapevine, Texas. They offer many experiences including range, machine gun, retail, and event. If they believed in truth in advertising, they’d mention these experiences: supermarket massacres, workplace massacres, and school massacres. Freedom, man.
I swore that I wouldn’t write another mass shooting post. It’s not that I don’t care but:
Joe Biden is sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Chris Murphy is sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Shannon Watts is sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Fred Guttenberg is sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Lucy McBath is sick and tired of being sick and tired.
The Newtown parents are sick and tired of being sick and tired.
It’s a universal feeling among decent people but decency is in short supply among many Americans. Freedom, man.
Back to the Texas Gun Experience, which is a Texas-sized gun store, not Jimi Hendrix’s backup band. It offers the following events:
The last event is called Ladies Shoot & Champagne. I am not making this up.
Booze & bullets, what could possibly go wrong?
I don’t think Jimi had any of that in mind when he posed this question:
I stumbled into the fever swamp of malakatude that is the Texas Gun Experience’s web site while searching for gun pictures. It’s an example of how intractable gun culture is in many parts of the country. It’s why it’s so damn hard to get anything done on the gun control front. Freedom, man.
When specific gun control measures are discussed there’s only one that will *reduce* massacres like the ones in Buffalo and Uvalde: an assault weapons ban including all the loopholes wrought by technology. All the other measures under discussion are useful but none will reduce the carnage of mass shootings.
It shows you how far gone we are as a country that the best we can hope for is to reduce massacres. Private citizens should not have weapons of war like the AR-15.
In 1934, Congress banned machine guns and sawed-off shotguns. In 2022, one political party believes that the Second Amendment is absolute. They’re absolutely wrong.
Mass murder of children should shake loose some semblance of decency among the gun nuts but we’re already hearing the wingnut cliches: thoughts-n-prayers; mental illness; freedom, man.
The political climate may not be ripe for gun control, but we can’t give up as our former publisher tweeted not long after the Uvalde massacre:
Despair is understandable. It is also a profound insult to everyone who gets up every single day and fights this. Stop congratulating yourself for being savvy enough to fucking give up.
— Allison Hantschel (@Athenae) May 24, 2022
Yeah, you right, A.
I’m using a Warren Zevon song as the post title. The Indifference of Heaven is a break-up song but some of its lines ring true to the massacre treadmill we find ourselves stuck on.
“Time marches on
Time stands still
Time on my hands
Time to kill
Blood on my hands
They say, “Everything’s alright.”
They say, “Better days are near.”
They tell us, “These are the good times.”
But they don’t live around here
We contemplate eternity
Beneath the vast indifference of heaven
The vast indifference of heaven”
Zevon specialized in world-weary lyrics. Quoting him is not a sign of resignation or indifference. I see the vast indifference of heaven as a reason why we must fight on in this world. As an agnostic, I believe that this world is all there is.
It’s easy to be exhausted after beating one’s head against the wall, but however bloody, the mortal wall is all we have.
The last word goes to Warren Zevon:
Yes. Never heard the Zevon song. Thanks
Hey agnostic, have you heard Chris Rea’s “Tell Me There’s A Heaven”?
Term limits for Senators and Representatives would help. Say 18 years for each Congressional branch with 24 years total should a person finish the limit in one branch and decide to successfully run in the other branch. This will not stop a person, or a group, from accruing power, but it will limit how long they can wield it. Lobbyist groups (NRA, etc.) will have to change their tactics. Perhaps also add an adjustment to the Judiciary Act to set the terms of judges to 20 years — this is also in Congress’ power.