On Wednesday, on Valentine’s Day, there was another school shooting, this time at a high school in Parkland Florida, and I find myself just not caring anymore.
It’s not anybody that I know, or anyplace that I’ve ever been. I don’t even know where Parkland is in Florida.
That’s how far we’ve come. It’s hard to even summon any outrage.
Despicable cowards like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell will offer their empty “thoughts and prayers,” the NRA will explain to us how this could have been prevented if we had armed police strolling the halls, and the Congress will do nothing at all. Or maybe try to export the gun laws in Florida to the rest of the nation.
I can see the same attitude of exasperation among many of the other posts that I’ve seen the last few days on Facebook.
I don’t care about Nikolaus Cruz, the lone gunman. I’m not interested in his life, or why he did what he did. I’m only interested in making sure that other little fuckers like him don’t continue to have access to assault rifles.
I don’t want to see all of the heartbreaking pictures of the victims, mostly attractive young men and women with their whole lives ahead of them.
This is not a discussion between liberals and conservatives, by the way. I have no problem with people wanting to own a handgun for their own protection, or a rifle for hunting, or even a pistol for competitive shooting. I do have a problem with teenagers having unlimited access to AR15 military assault rifles.
No, this is a discussion between reasonable people and completely unreasonable assholes. Sorry, but there it is.
So, nothing will happen, of course. Just waiting for the next record-breaking school shooting, or maybe a mass shooting at a nursing home. I don’t think we’ve had one of those yet.