an act of god

there has been another shooting in a school in the united states, according to the news. from what ive read it sounds like a disgruntled son killed his father then went to the school where his mother worked and continued killing. many children dead and obama was crying on tv

woah. how awful is that? literally one of the most awful things around, outside of the various war zones. multiple children among the victims, and not even teenagers but deadset young kids. too young even to have ever been cruel to their fellow man or significantly harm mother earth.

and all killed with a relatively small calibre rife apparently. this may be of significance because my hunting experiences have really hammered home the point that it usually takes much longer to kill large animals with a small calibre weapon.

like most breaking news these days, i heard about the shooting via the facebook updates of my friends who were lamenting the slaughtered children. then i saw on tv that officials in the us were more or less doing the same thing; saying how sad it all is.

and it is at this point that tragedy becomes farce. bigtime. a tragedy in the ancient greek style.

because all the things ive seen said by american officials in regards to the massacre is exactly the same sort of shit an old woman says at a funeral: "how awful" "unites us in grief" "sending our prayers" "such a shame" "we're all in this together" "we'll get through it" "whole lives ahead of them" “evil”

valid points all, sure, but why the fuck do we need leaders to say what all of us know? we already know this, and if we didn’t our mothers would tell us. and hell, the news has told us the details to boot. we all already know.

 as i understand it, elected officials are supposed to solve and prevent things like this, but maybe that's just a quaint australia and uk and EVERYWHERE ELSE thing.

i can remember once there was a big attack in new york city and the united states responded instantly with a no-holds-back worldwide war to try to avoid a repeat of such an event. misguided perhaps, but it was nevertheless a genuine attempt to try and avoid a repeat.

so it's pretty amazing to see a nation of 300+ million treat massacres of children as an unavoidable tragedy; in the same class as earthquakes or meteor strikes.

ah! (i have the news on tv atm) so it seems obama DID say "something should be done" to avoid this happening again. mustve missed that the first time i saw the speech. should i be eating my words then? does this tiptoeing around the issue of gun control invalidate the point ive been making? hmm. fuck no, you idiot.

let's be clear: anything short of a furious condemnation of gun culture and a promise to try and bring in some sort of controls and limitations on weaponry is a spectacular failure of leadership.

if i were the president giving that speech i would probably be less concerned with showing people that i understand the murder of kids is bad and more concerned with, well, actually being a leader with agency. maybe actually promising to do my best to make it harder for disgruntled men and boys to kill dozens of kids instead of just a subtle nod to the anti-gun crowd.

because seriously, every month or two there is another atrocity. for years now, a mass killing here and there, a smattering of butchery. now i hate america as much as any real person but every time i hear about a shooting at school it literally sickens me.  

and here is some science 4 U: it is much harder to kill multiple people without a gun then with one. this is because guns are neat little machines designed exclusively for killing. if you make it so people cant get guns, it will be that little bit harder to kill eachother.

in australia there was once a shooting on such a large scale that it might be described as american. the country was shocked, and nearly overnight the government swung into action and bought back all the most dangerous of weapons so that such a thing might happen less often.

all i remember of it was my dad and grandfather dutifully giving up a gun or two. there has not been a shooting remotely on the scale of port arthur since.

now ive never been to america, but im pretty sure the idea of a gun buy-back could not even be suggested by politicians there. firearm ownership is the religion of the nation, and a source of identity to millions.

if my five year old was killed in his kindergarten class i would want a gun to shoot myself.


:,(