Talking Guns and Trump, In One Last Breath

IT IS LIKELY that more essays have been published on this site about mass murders in America than any other subject, except Donald J. Trump, a distinction which probably does nothing to recommend this website, the people who work on it, or the cultural context whence it emerges. Yet, alas, as we say, its the only game in town, at least at the moment, much to our collective regret. There is something disquieting about these two topics: guns and mass murder, and Trump, something strangely symmetrical, as if the two belong together, but shouldn't. After all, the president is assiduous in offering both his prayers and his thoughts, much like the rest of us. Come to think about it, "thoughts and prayers" are yet another pair to draw to; they go together in our collective hearts and minds (another fine pair!). They assuage our vague and disquieting feeling of fear, guilt, and deflected responsibility, much as mass murder and Trump evoke similar images of chaos, bombast, anger, and retribution. When all else fails, offer thoughts and prayers. That'll surely make everything just fine. Let gun control legislation banning assault weapons languish in committee, or let it even fail to arrive to a committee. Espouse vehemently a better solution: that all good citizens take up arms against a sea of troubles, and go out into the world bearing, and ready to defend to the death the right to peacefully...bear arms...All it takes ia one good man or woman or child, properly locked and loaded, ready, willing and able to become the next Matt Dillon hero of the day, in a shoot out of a country much in need of citizen law. After all, Matt himself can only be one place at one time, and he is currently down at the Long Branch, having quick beer on the house, deflecting yet another flirtatious advance from Kitty, listening to old Doc growl and to the illiterate Festus, symbolizing most of us in the United States of Amnesia, with his broken English and slightly twisted reasoning. So, we come full circle, back to where we began" another of our patented mass murders, another cynical essay, and the same best answer; arm all god people and that means us all, for starters. This, because we can never tell beforehand whence will come the next snapped mind, with the next fully automatic rifle, in a crowded public place of opportunity. After all, we start out as "good people", eligible for personal concealed armament. and we can all take the eight week course - or is it two weeks, or but a day? - and become instant potential Matt Dillons, plural. Sound about right? or, sound a bit psychotic, culturally? We have the further good fortune that most of our current killers, apparently aware of America's propensity for the proprietary, generously provide full ideological and personal credit where credit is due. Thus they point their loving trigger fingers straight down the sight at Donald J. Trump and the extreme right wing white supremacy movement, the one closely associated with modern American Christian evangelical Trumpian fervor, church of Christ, prince of peace, incorporated. And in a land where everyone wants to be famous, if only for a few minutes, what more fitting accreditation than to give credit to a former reality TV star turned head of arrogant state, the United States of Anger. We would never have even the slightest hope of assigning proper credit for our blood letting reality TV past time, but for the fact that our superstars of the mass murdering day conveniently do it for us, asking little in return, but a few minutes of fame.