It's Not Dreiser's Drama

The flags are still at half-staff across the country as the funerals continue. The shooting at Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Sunday morning, is another "American tragedy." We are beyond cliche in the use of that term and I hope the estate of Theodore Dreiser get themselves a good lawyer and sue somebody. 

Our romance with weaponizing our society from the very youngest to the oldest, a refusal to make having a license for a weapon at least as hard as owning a dog and criminally under-funding mental health resources to assist the millions of broken, beaten, and battered our society produces led to the inevitable and predictable result and will again, and again, and again.

I was long past sending thoughts and prayers to those murdered or injured decades ago and I'm not sure what else is left to say to mealy-mouthed muttering of the President of the United States and the Speaker of the House who feel it's 'too soon' to speak about 'gun control' after Sunday's shooting. 

That leads me to wonder exactly when it's okay to speak about the murders in Newtown, Connecticut, also with guns, which was five years ago next month. I honestly don't think ANY of these shootings have a "best if talked about no earlier than' date and you're kidding yourself if you feel otherwise.

How about the babyiest of baby steps, Congress and Mr. President, though it will take some balls, and ovaries to make it happen? Why not allow the Centers for Disease Control to resume researching firearms injuries and death. I said "resume" because until 1996, the CDC did that research but the NRA claimed it was advocating for gun control and threatened to stop bankrolling campaigns for those in Congress, in both houses, if funding for that research wasn't cut. Money doesn't talk, it swears.

And two decades later we have bromides like a "good guy with a gun will stop a bad guy with a gun," which some to include the Prevaricator in Chief are intimating is what happened in Sutherland Springs (except 26 people were killed before the good guy evened the score). 

As President Trump said early our time Monday morning, every nation has mental health challenges-left unsaid is how no one else has the manifestations of violence with guns of all kinds that we here in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave have. What, if anything, is the relationship of any of this to where we are? We don't know, because we don't have the information, but we could and we should. 

Tell our elected representatives in the nation's capital that, in case they haven't noticed, we are murdering one another out here in the heartlands and someone needs to stop us before we kill again. We don't need a good guy with a gun, pious platitudes or more helpless shrugging of shoulders. 

We need research that looks at our situation, makes an assessment based on the facts at hand and proposes solutions. And shut the phuq up about thoughts and prayers, please!

-bill kenny