Fear and Carnage in Las Vegas

It's happened again. To tell you the truth, we were a bit overdue. This is a good news/bad news scenario for Donald Trump. The good news is the fact that this latest little saga in the national train-wreck will divert the public's attention from the scandal that will very soon consume his presidency; The bad news is simply that the shooter who killed at least fifty people last night in Las Vegas apparently was not a Muslim.

Fifty people. The numbers are expected to rise.

 

This is a subject that I'm sick of writing about. To make things a little bit easier for my purposes, I'm just going to tip toe through the old archives and let previous things I've written over the years do the talking for me. Here are a few oldies but goldies for your reading pleasure - all still perfectly relevant:

 

April 19, 2007:

 

This week, as in times past, we're having all the old, tired clichés of the National Rifle Association shoved down our throats: "Guns don't kill people. People kill people." Of course they don't - and I'm seriously considering shooting the next person who tells me that. "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have them." Yeah right. Were you aware of the fact that gun violence in Britain has all-but vanished since that country banned all hand guns a few years ago? The same is true for Australia! In countries where firearms are difficult or impossible to obtain, the murder rate is extremely low or (in some cases) non-existent. I'm not makin' this stuff up, folks! Do the research!

 

March 29, 2009:

 

As Americans arm themselves to the teeth, the law of averages will eventually forbid such an unspeakable tragedy from not touching the lives of almost everyone. It has already happened to my family - twice. Two female cousins of mine - who never even had the joy of meeting one another - (one on my mother's side, the other on my father's) both died as the result of being murdered by men who were stalking them. Don't for a moment reflect on the passive tranquility of your lives and delude yourself into thinking, "It can't happen here". It can. It will. Whether child, parent, sibling, cousin or friend; gun violence will touch your seemingly untouchable lives eventually. Count on it.
 

July 20, 2012:

 

This is the way it's going to be from now on, kiddies. When a country has the stupidest gun laws in the western world (laws that are getting even stupider by the year) its citizens should come to expect this sort of thing. Our lawmakers have no intention of correcting this unacceptable situation. Most of them are too terrified of the power of the National Rifle Association to do the right thing. [In 1957] John F. Kennedy (one of history's more celebrated victims of gun violence) wrote a book that profiled examples of great political courage throughout American history. He wouldn't have much material to work with were he around today to write a sequel. Cowardice abounds. Get used to living in a country in ruins. This is the way it's going to be from now on.

December 15, 2012: 

The tragedy in Newtown yesterday morning defies reason and common decency; but don't think for a minute that a change is going to come. Any half-witted, psychotic little geek with an attitude problem and a fist-full of dollars will still be able to walk into any gun shop in Anytown, USA and take home a handy-dandy, semi-automatic, military assault weapon specifically designed to kill an entire roomful of men, women and little children  - and do it quite quickly and efficiently, too. Our lawbreakers disguised as lawmakers will still act as whores to expediency and campaign contributions. American children will still be slaughtered on the alters of greed and human stupidity. That ol' River of Blood is gonna still keep on flowin', baby! Nothing is going to change - nothing.  Why bother getting so bent out of shape over the inevitable? I'm not.

The NRA types love to jabber away - like diseased little myna birds - about 'freedom'. We need to come to grips with some unpleasant realities. A society that lives in dreaded, mortal terror wondering when and where the next massacre of innocents will take place may indeed be many things - no argument there. 'Free' they are not. Let's just stop kidding ourselves here and now, okay?

January 13, 2013:

The gun crazies tell us that the purpose of the Second Amendment was to have the people armed to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. That's pretty crazy, too. The founders had a bit more faith in this new democratic experiment than that. There's a dandy reason why it was not legal for a private citizen to own a cannon back in the day. A cannon, when aimed just right, was capable of harming or killing a whole lot of innocent people. That's why they inserted the line about "a well-regulated militia" (a line the NRA always omits when quoting that amendment). James Madison and crew could not have envisioned rapid-fire, semi automatic weapons in their wildest dreams. Hell, they couldn't even foresee the Edison Wax Cylinder! That's the reason they designed the Constitution to be amendable. They had no idea what future technology had in store for humanity. A bit of amending is in order, wouldn't you say?

February 20, 2013:

Sure enough, and as predictably as the sun setting in the western sky this evening, it is quite clear that nothing is going to change. Nothing. Two months and six days ago twenty human beings - just barely out of infancy - were slaughtered like cattle by some goddamned lunatic bearing a tiny arsenal of rapid-fire weapons. In spite of national shock and outrage and the demand that these guns be eliminated from the public marketplace, most of our representatives are going to see to it that things remain just as they are.

March 22, 2013:

In the meantime (very mean indeed) we really have to come face-to-face with the prospect of living in a nation in ruins. We need to understand that there are just too many people in this doomed country - too violent, too stupid, and too stone-cold crazy - to ever see the light of day. This is not a situation that can be cured overnight by some magical, sociological panacea. This is a condition that will take a century or more to remedy - if it is ever remedied at all. We might as well deal with it as best we can. We The People are diseased. Congress is an organized criminal enterprise. The media is beyond dysfunctional. The chickens are coming home to roost - and they're armed and dangerous.

GUNS! Guns galore, baby! GUNS FOREVER! Lots 'n' lots of little baby body parts!  Little boys 'n' girls, blown to smithereens -  to teeny weeny bits! Decapitated heads and limbs - severed forever by the force of the explosion from the hand of some homicidal half-wit with a serious attitude problem and way too much time on his hands. This is what happened in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012. Have a look at the autopsy reports if you think I'm lying to you.

 

April 9, 2013:

But what the hell! Ninety percent of the American people want to see stricter gun legislation and yet these assholes refuse to do the right thing. I can't keep emphasizing this enough, folks: Congress is an organized criminal enterprise. And it's not just the Republicans in the cross-hairs of my scope (figuratively speaking - I promise!) There are enough Democrats who are hardly blameless. They should all be held accountable for the carnage when the next massacre of innocents happens within a few months time. And it's gonna happen, make no mistake about it - again and again and again.  Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans (not to mention Harry Reid and the conservative Democrats) will see to that. This is a fact of life that we need to grow accustomed to.

May 7, 2013

 How "free" do you feel? Free as a bird? That's perfectly understandable if you've never had someone you loved dearly killed by gunfire. I have. I wonder how many of the parents of the kids murdered in Newtown didn't give a rat's ass about the "gun issue" prior to December 14, 2012. I don't know the answer to that question. What I know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that they care now. They care very much. You will, too, if and when it happens to you. And as we continue down this idiotic road, the chances are getting better by the day that it will indeed happen to someone you love - or to you - or to me (YIKES!). 

 September 8, 2013:

Note to the rest of the world: Planning on a sweet and cozy vacation for the spouse and kiddies? Here's some sound advice you'd be smart to heed: Stay out of the this place. We here in the good ol' USA want you dead. And if we catch you in the wrong place at the wrong time you're a goner, Buster. Of course the odds are much better than fifty/fifty that you'll get out of here alive but why on earth would you want to take such a chance - particularly when your loved ones are involved? Go out and hug a tree during a thunderstorm. It's much safer than visiting the United States of America. Think I'm kidding? Don't mess with us. Stay away from here if you know what's good for you. I'm not kidding.

September 21, 2013

Guess Who

Wayne LaPierre, the National Rifle Association's most visible spokesman, will be going on Meet The Press for a sit-down with David Gregory tomorrow. He's always loads of fun to watch. On his last appearance on that program, the hideous twit was literally foaming at the mouth. I'm not kidding! It must be a difficult thing to make one's living defending the indefensible. How this guy sleeps at night is anyone's guess. My theory is that he's simply a sociopath. Or maybe he's suffering from acute brain damage. Whatever the case, it should be an interesting hour.

In the wake of the Newtown tragedy of December 14, Wayne said something to the effect that the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. In the case of the Washington DC Naval yard massacre you had a bad guy with a gun entering a military facility that - we must presume - was packed to the rafters with lots of good guys with guns. And sure enough, one of them was able to take the bad guy out. HOORAY! The only problem was the fact that he was able to murder twelve innocent people before he was put down. OUCH! So much for the delightful idiocy of Wayne LaPierre.

September 2, 2014:

A little news item in this morning's paper caught my attention pretty quick. There has been a stampede nationwide to purchase as many models as possible of a particular, Russian-made AK 47. You see, Obama has just initiated a ban on importing them as part of the sanctions against the former Soviet Union because of their involvement in the Ukraine conflict. As a result, they have literally flown off of the shelves at gun stores all across this ruined land. As far as anyone can tell, there are no more of the things left. That's what is known as a good news/bad news scenario. 

Good News: There is one less dangerous weapon available. 

Bad News: In the last week America has become just a wee bit more lethal than it was the week before. Isn't that nice?

August 27, 2015:

And please, don't give me the NRA's argument (and if they haven't used it yet, they will - count on it) that if only Alison and Adam had the sense to arm themselves, they would be alive today.

Alison Parker and Adam Ward were focusing on their jobs. They were ambushed. They were doomed. They never had a chance.

May 24, 2016:

This is not "the land of the free". If you are under the delusion that, as an American, you are freer than a citizen of, say, Norway or Ireland or France or England or the Netherlands, you might just as well go back to sleep. We live in a constant state of paranoia and despair, wondering when and where the next massacre of innocents will take place - as it surely will, and very soon. Call it what you will, just don't call it "freedom". Don't insult my intelligence, okay? We've been sold down the river to the lowest bidder. Stop kidding yourselves. Just deal with this American wasteland as best you can.

 TIMELY TIP: Vodka helps. Lots 'n' lots of vodka.

June 13, 2016:

 

Don't hold your breath waiting for change to come. That's not going to happen - not now, not ever. Every Republican in Washington (and way too many Democrats to count) are in the pocket of the National Rifle Association. I imagine the only thing that would reverse this intolerable situation would be an epidemic     of random shootings of our elected representatives (with a handful of NRA spokesmen thrown in just for shits and giggles). That would change things overnight - you'd better believe it, Bubba! But it would be wrong for me to hope for such a deplorable trend in our national affairs - and I'm not even gonna go there. I'm just trying to make what I feel to be a very valid point. And besides, violence isn't my thing. It isn't your thing either, I'm sure....I hope.


Dead-Dead-Dead-Dead-Dead....
`

If the corpses of twenty little girls and boys, all barely past infancy - slaughtered inside a Connecticut schoolroom like a barn-full of rabid pigs - wasn't enough to get these sociopathic bitches and bastards in Congress to do what is, after all, the only morally right thing to do, the mutilated bodies of nearly fifty dead homosexuals is not going to get the job done either. Call that "an educated guess" on my part. Don't forget that these nasty little regularities are the price we must pay for - ARE YOU READY FOR THIS? - our "freedom". Ain't that a riot?  

****************************
 
Well that's it. This is now officially the worst mass shooting in the history of this doomed country. More people were shot last night in Las Vegas, Nevada on American soil than any time since the Civil War. In the short time it took me to compile this piece the numbers did indeed go up. At this hour the fatality count is over fifty-eight human beings slaughtered and over four-hundred injured, all while innocently enjoying a Jason Aldean concert. Those numbers are expected to rise before the sun sets on this troubled day in the life of Idiot Nation.
 
I'm going back to bed.
 
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

SUGGESTED READING:

Suffer Little Children
From this site, April 9, 2013

https://tomdegan.blogspot.com/2013/04/suffer-little-children.html

This one was written less than four months after the massacre of twenty little boys and girls inside a classroom in Newtown, Connecticut.