I've long since become desensitized to mass shootings. I didn't stop caring that innocent people keep getting murdered. I'll never stop caring about that. I've just stopped being interested in the story when it happens. And I've stopped pretending we're going to do a damn thing to stop it from happening.
We're not going to do anything about it. We're going to keep letting right wing politicians and pundits tell us that it's "too soon" to talk about gun control because that's "politicizing a tragedy". We won't actually fight for any real gun reform, even though we know it would work.
We're going to keep letting them distract from the gun issue to make it about mental illness. But we won't fight for any meaningful action about mental illness. We'll let them scapegoat the mentally ill and blame them for these tragedies while doing nothing to help either problem.
We're going to keep letting them blame secularism rather than the guns. They'll keep saying people get murdered because they need Jesus. Sure, we'll bitch about them on the Internet. But we won't put them in their place anywhere of consequence, like a legislature.
We're so used to these things happening, Presidential candidates casually refer to "the next one". Because we all know there will be more.
We're not going to do anything to fix it. We've even shown indifference to elementary school children being murdered. After ignoring that, what the fuck would it take for us to fix it.
The pattern is so predictable, The Daily Show can joke about prerecording their responses to it. Anyone could prerecord a response to the next one and have it work. Because it's the same fucking thing every time.
Mass shootings are a part of our culture that, for a variety reasons, we're not ready to give up. I refuse to pretend we are ready until we are actually doing something outside of the script.
Unfortunately, that time isn't coming any time soon.
How do I know? I wrote most of this after the Aurora shooting and just updated it with current references.
I can write this without even mentioning which shooting, and most people reading it will probably have a different one in mind. Especially since there have been 4 shootings since the one I most recently wrote this for.
We're not going to do anything about it. We're going to keep letting right wing politicians and pundits tell us that it's "too soon" to talk about gun control because that's "politicizing a tragedy". We won't actually fight for any real gun reform, even though we know it would work.
We're going to keep letting them distract from the gun issue to make it about mental illness. But we won't fight for any meaningful action about mental illness. We'll let them scapegoat the mentally ill and blame them for these tragedies while doing nothing to help either problem.
We're going to keep letting them blame secularism rather than the guns. They'll keep saying people get murdered because they need Jesus. Sure, we'll bitch about them on the Internet. But we won't put them in their place anywhere of consequence, like a legislature.
We're so used to these things happening, Presidential candidates casually refer to "the next one". Because we all know there will be more.
We're not going to do anything to fix it. We've even shown indifference to elementary school children being murdered. After ignoring that, what the fuck would it take for us to fix it.
The pattern is so predictable, The Daily Show can joke about prerecording their responses to it. Anyone could prerecord a response to the next one and have it work. Because it's the same fucking thing every time.
Mass shootings are a part of our culture that, for a variety reasons, we're not ready to give up. I refuse to pretend we are ready until we are actually doing something outside of the script.
Unfortunately, that time isn't coming any time soon.
How do I know? I wrote most of this after the Aurora shooting and just updated it with current references.
I can write this without even mentioning which shooting, and most people reading it will probably have a different one in mind. Especially since there have been 4 shootings since the one I most recently wrote this for.
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