Adding Up Senseless Death

THERE WAS A TIME, long since pssed, when it as still possible to enumerate America's mass murders individually, whether by name of city, precise date and time, number of victims, weapon used, whatever. Now they occur with such frequency that they blend together,and we count them by the week or weekend. This weekend there have been, if my calculations are corrrect, no fewer than three, and the weekend isn't even over. What they seem to have in common is that the weapon of choice is the venerable AR15, which at least one far right wing congressperson -it might have been Marjorie or Boebert - proposed be formally designated "America's gun". America's gun it already is. America, the land of serial mass shootings, with her own special mass murdering weapon of choice. And to think, our national past time used to be baseball. In 2021, the most recent year for which reords are available,approximately forty seven hundred children were killed by firearms in these United States, which was either more or less than the previous year, and the following year, but not by much, the difference being less significant than the staggering raw numbers. That's nearly a suffiient number of dead children to make it worthwhile to do something about it, but not quite, evidently. What would be a number that would "trigger" legislative action to at least ban assalt weapons? Ten thousand? One hundred thousand? One million? Take your pick. Between 1994 and 2004 assault rifles were indeed banned in America, and guess what? Deaths by assault weapons dropped precipitously. Then, Republicas, the party of Guns Over People (G.O.P.) reared its ugly head, the ban expired, and it was back to the shooting gallery all across the fruited plains. So a twenty one year old with no criminal record, nary a blemish to his name but an unrelenting hatred of African-Americans, purchased an AR15 perfectly legally in April, gave it some thought, and, this weekend walked into a Dollar General store and killed three black people. Our consolation? It could have been worse. There is no background check nor gun safety course which could have or would have prevented it, as is customary. People standing around in circles, holding hands,lighting candles, thoughts, prayers, the usual purely symbolic forms of self congratulatory, sour comfort for desperate people in a hapless culture of death. The far right wing lunatic mainstream would handout AR15s to all the "good people",and proclaim the problem solved.The ensuing national blood bath the right wing Christian community would attribute to poor gun safety by liberals, Joe Biden, the deep state,or whatever suits them for the time being. The gun saturated culture would not be mentioned. Guns do not kill people, people kill people. The people who kill people just happen to have guns while killing people. Otherwise, they would use ball bats, pen knives,or salad forks. The second amendment remains sacred. The well regulated militia has morphed into an angry, unregulated mob of good, armed o the teeth citizens. Thank God and the Republican party that we the American people are a well armed citizenry. Can you imagine how awful the carnage would be if only the "bad people" carried weapons?