A Different Madness Returns

Perhaps the only bright spot of the COVID pandemic, other than the heroism of our medical personnel, has been the absence of mass shootings in America.

But in the middle of March Madness, a different kind of madness has returned.

Eight people were killed last week in a series of shootings at three massage parlors in the Atlanta area.

Yesterday, 10 Americans, including a police officer who was the father of seven children, were massacred in a supermarket in Boulder.

Over the past year, without "mass" gatherings—like church services, concerts, movies, and school assemblies—there have been fewer opportunities for madmen to target large numbers of victims.

Sadly, tragically, horrifically, now that things are returning to "normal" in the U.S., we must face the reality that mass shootings will also return.

That's because America is the only nation in the world where the "freedom" to carry a gun and kill people is more important than the "freedom" to go to school, church, the mall, or the grocery store without the fear of getting shot by some madman.

I purposely use the term "madman," because virtually all of these mass murderers are men. Almost always white men. Loners. Losers. Mentally disturbed guys with some grievance or perverted rationale.

(Curiously, these white mass murderers are almost always apprehended and brought in safely by the police. You can kill eight people in massage parlors, nine in a church, 12 in a movie theatre or 17 in a high school, and somehow you’ll be brought in alive. If you’re a black man who passes a counterfeit $20 bill or falls asleep in a Wendy’s line, you may not be so lucky. But I digress).

Over the years many sensible gun laws have been proposed and passed by the House, including two just last week. Laws that, even if they save one life, are well worth the effort.

Yet these bills always die in the Senate, where cowardly sycophants treat as a God-given right the "freedom" to purchase a weapon of war without a background check or a waiting period, and carry it openly.

The better to defend oneself, they claim, in their ridiculous misinterpretation of the Second Amendment. A “good guy with a gun” is the best defense against gun violence, they argue. They even want to arm school teachers, for heaven’s sake.

Such rubbish. Such absurd nonsense. We need fewer guns, not more guns. This has been proven in every other advanced nation in the world. We don’t need teachers or shoppers firing across classrooms and food aisles as law enforcement arrives and tries to distinguish the good guys from the bad.

So, as usual, we’ll get more “thoughts and prayers.” More Republicans charging that Democrats are trying to “politicize” a tragedy. More bullshit excuses about liberty and freedom and the founders’ intentions.

And more innocent people dying needlessly.